


To Each His Own

by shadesfalcon



Series: Stockholm Syndrome [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Breathplay, Character Development, Child Abuse, Discipline, Discussions of non-consensual surgery, Drowning, Espionage, F/M, Flogging, Human Trafficking, Hurt/Comfort, Language Kink, Praise Kink, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Harm, Sensory Deprivation, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Content, Slow Build, Spies & Secret Agents, Stockholm Syndrome, Swearing, Torture, Violence, but they learn better i promise, sexual exploitation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-18 04:19:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 80,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2335049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadesfalcon/pseuds/shadesfalcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where the Black Widows are trained under different criteria. While Natalia Romanova is still her calculating dangerous self, she’s also been conditioned since childhood to obey her Russian handler, 24/7, no matter the request. A snap of his fingers can strip away all her lethal power as she falls to her knees at his feet.<br/>Enter Clint, who really didn’t know what he was doing when his arrow pierced that handler’s chest. Now he’s left with the world’s most dangerous assassin conditioned to obey his every command. While SHIELD is thrilled, Clint is not so sure.</p><p>Now with a <a href="https://play.spotify.com/user/hellaskye/playlist/5ZzOfCFGGkd2sxHSUnxFri">spotify playlist</a> by <a href="http://katebxshops.tumblr.com/">katebxshops</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While I am in not an expert in BDSM, I know enough to understand that characters here do not start out properly practicing it. “Safe, sane, and consensual” is not the phrase of the day. However, they’re trying to be good, and they do learn better, I promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for graphic physical abuse and non-graphic allusions to sexual abuse of a child.

The part of her mind still left thought it wasn’t fair. They worked her until she could tolerate anything, and then they changed the rules so she was full of a whole new kind of pain. She had figured it out in-between the burning and the drowning. If she could teach herself to endure everything, then they lost their power over her. But every time she thought they’d run out there was another, more creative, layer. Even the old tortures returned in new ways. A blindfold twisted even simple knives into invisible and undefeatable enemies.

In-between the isolation and the immobilization, she grew in her understanding. True strength was not immunity to all torture. It was accepting that there were as many ways to break a person as there were minds to imagine. There would always be something new to endure.

Her trainers identified that as the first day she was brought to heel. She was eleven years old, with eyes like the damned. That night, she willingly crawled into her handler’s arms for the first time.

He soothed her gently, rough hands up and down over smooth legs. She shivered, but held still.

“We’re done for the day,” He promised. “Unless, of course, you make me punish you.”

_Unless, of course. Unless, of course. Unless, of course._

She was 13 when she realized her trainers had begun to only punish insolence and vivacity when it was against Him. Failure continued to earn stripes, but she was no longer forced to respect anyone else. She started lashing out, verbally and then physically, establishing her reputation in ever-widening circles. When she crossed a boundary, He was there to remind her of its presence. His rules were her whole world. A flat expanse, with edges more dangerous than bottomless waterfalls.

For years, nothing changed except the background scenery. What language, or what fighting style, today? Practice disarming with a smile, now with undetected fingers, now with sharp knives that bury in so deep they’re lost in the fold of flesh and gush of blood.

The first time she killed her sparring partner, she stood rooted with fear. This, surely, was against the rules? She dropped to her knees, closing her eyes to prevent her reflexes from dodging her away.

But the hand on her shoulder was not harsh. He squeezed with strong fingers and murmured, “Красивая. Мой хищник.”

From then on, she killed whenever she could. She quickly grew too good, too dangerous.

“Vous devez être prudent, le plus cher,” He said to her one day, because Tuesdays were for French. “Personne ne veut vous enseigner.” His tone was admonishing, but she could tell he was proud. She promised to be good, smiling with full red lips. To anyone else, the smile promised death. He reveled in it.

But not all days were so perfect. He grew harder to please as she grew older. It pushed her forward to creativity. New tricks always made him smile at her.

When she was 15, she completed her first mission alone. Regardless of the emptiness on the rooftop, she was determined to prove she didn’t need Him by her side. She was not a burden. She was flawless.

Six months later she failed her first mission. She’d been assigned five targets in total. Timing gave her 14 seconds to reach the door, 20 seconds for the first two guards and staircase, 15 seconds for the third guard and door, and 8 seconds for the fourth guard. That left her 40 seconds to break into the strong room for the final target with 3 minutes to get out of the mansion and away into the night. Her support team was standing by to light the house on fire once she was clear.

Everything fell apart at the lock. With four bodies already behind her, a warning came over her com that the local security might have been alerted to her presence. Her support team had been ordered to blow the incendiary devices immediately.

“You still have time,” He promised her. “Finish him and just reroute your exit via the roof.”

He said it like it was nothing. Nothing to stand in a great mansion and know it was on fire. She had assumed that a thousand tortures would have minimized the effects of a trauma formed long ago, in a forgotten childhood.

They hadn’t.

Suddenly, everything was adrenaline and imagined heat. She coughed on smoke that wasn’t there, and her hands trembled too much to be any use. After a few seconds of fighting with the lock, she threw her tools to the floor and fled to the roof.

She jumped freely across the tops of buildings for a while, but ended up back home. Habit emerging from a blank mind.

The first words out of His mouth were, “I guess I’m doomed to forever be repeatedly disappointed in you.”

It hurt more permanently than any physical punishment he might choose to inflict afterward. Sometimes a verbal reproof was the end of it. Sometimes it wasn’t. She just knew to bow her head and be grateful either way.

That day, he made her hold her hands open on the desk. Even when she begged to have them tied down, he refused. He said, “È necessario imparare il controllo.”

She kept still while He dug into the sensitive pad of her finger with her own butterfly knife. She did not keep silent. He worked the blade underneath the skin, down to the bone and peeled her back on herself, sliding needles through the bloody mess.

When He stepped back, she looked down at her own flayed flesh pinning her to the desk. She was not able to hold her stillness for the rest of the fingers, and she sobbed in relief when he finally tied her down.

When He was finished--when He felt like forgiving her--He pulled the pins out one by one and dropped them on the desk. Each one made a tiny splash in the pool of her blood.

She just stood there, dripping hands outstretched, knowing better than to ask to be healed. He moved slowly, but eventually the needle was in her arm, injecting the serum. He held the skin shut on each finger until it healed into perfection, afterward laying a gentle kiss to the new skin.

When it was finished, He pointed at the desk and she quietly cleaned up her blood. She picked up each pin with her fingernails, rinsing them off in the sink before returning them to their box.

Then He turned her over to her trainers.

For the next month, they locked her into spaces that were on fire. Sometimes it was a cage, sometimes just a room. Sometimes it was more smoke, sometimes more blaze. Sometimes there was a way to put it out, sometimes she could only scream.

By the time they were satisfied, she thought of herself as flame; bright and beautiful and too dangerous to touch.

What was left of her mind rejoiced in the peace His return brought. She’d been starved of Him for so many weeks.

“Sie werden es nichtwieder tun,” He stated, and she nodded in vicious agreement.

“I love you,” she whispered. Their secret.

He pet her hair gently. “Of course you do.”

***

“Worthless shits,” Clint said, not even trying to be quiet.

“Barton,” Vespen warned, but the reprimand stopped there. Even the Senior Agents got pissy about cases like these. They were the kind that could haunt you if something went wrong. Hell, sometimes they haunted you even when everything went right.

Clint returned to sorting through the photos. He mentally marked the identifying facial features and filed them away. He’d know it immediately if he saw any one of the the 34 teenaged faces again.

“Who’s gonna bite?” Retzker called from the back of the room. He was referring to the agent that would go undercover, posing as the wealthy businessman seeking affordable labor. I.E. rich pimp looking for stock.

“Carter’s team is on this one,” Clint answered. “Fury briefed me, along with Agents Vosper and Chez, last night. They’re boots on the ground with Carter’s team and I’m eyes in the sky with Baranov and Lutz. The rest of you, see Ramón for your assignments.”

As the room began to churn with moving bodies, Clint forced himself to breathe through the nerves of new leadership. He was glad Coulson was handler on this one. Working with a large team was not his specialty, so it was nice to have a familiar face.

“Agent Barton.”

Speak of the devil. Clint turned to see Coulson beckoning him. He slipped through the crowd and out into the hallway.

“Sir?”

“I know you’re all setting up for transport, but new information just got handed to us, and you need to hear it.” When Clint didn’t respond, Coulson continued. “This shipment of girls might have extra security. One of our deep cover agents had to be emergently pulled out this morning. The slavers might know you’re coming.”

Clint nodded. “Good to know. But we always knew they might have been tipped off. I’ll pass it along, and we’ll handle it as it comes.”

“Not what I meant, Clint.”

Clint stuttered to a stop at the use of his first name. He stepped back and took the file being held out to him.

“It’s not light stuff,” Coulson warned. “That’s what we know about Petrovitch’s Black Widow program. We have reason to believe one of them will be on guard there. Worse, she won’t have her handler with her for at least a day, so there’s no distraction if they strike against you immediately. It will make her twice as dangerous, and all Widows are dangerous to begin with. Take this seriously. You have lives depending on you.”

Clint made a face. “Yeah, thanks for that reminder.”

“Don’t need a reminder, Barton. Don’t forget it in the first place.”

***

“Who doesn’t love a pretty little ass?” Retzker quipped.

“Don’t oversell it,” Clint murmured into the com. “And stay away from the cabinet; it blocks my view.”

“Come on, Hawkeye,” Baranov laughed from his position at the other corner. “There is no overselling it in these circumstances.”

“Coms are for the mission,” Clint snapped. He meant “don’t undervalue my authority,” but he’d always felt that people who had to point out their own authority didn’t deserve it. And he had to hand it to Retzker. The kid was a natural. He was already dissolving the tense meet-and-greet into a slightly less tense business negotiation.

“Of course, I have to see the girls.” Retzker was just the right amount of apologetic and demanding. It had been the right call to cut the kid’s teeth on this assignment. He was going places.

Everyone got a little tense when Retzker and his “bodyguards” disappeared into the basement, but the sounds of raucous laughter continued. Retzker made a few comments that made everyone’s skin crawl, and then they were headed back up.

“I have to admit, “ Retzker said. “I’m impressed with the shipment size. I’d thought maybe 30, but what was that? 50? 60?”

Clint felt, more than saw, his team moving to respond to the new info. He knew they’d cover everything from flight plans to medical attention. He tuned out the murmur of arrangement to focus on the action below.

An unsettling nausea suddenly swept through him, and he twisted around to look behind him. When he didn’t see anything, he did a check-in call over the radio. He didn’t relax when everyone came up clear.

“Something off?” Baranov asked.

“Just a feeling,” Clint answered. It didn’t make anyone any calmer. Clint’s “feelings” had given heads ups that had saved more than one life.

***

She counted three on the roof and eight at various locations nearby. Plus the three in the room and whoever was running the whole op. The man on the southeast corner was calling the on-scene shots, but someone at a base had the op’s control.

She trained her scope back on the man on the roof. She itched to pull the trigger, but He’d made it clear that this was recon only.

For a short moment, she played out the fantasy in her head, allowing her finger to stray onto the trigger. The moment she touched it, the man twisted around to look straight back at her. She almost fired on reflex, but forced herself to relax in the darkness. He was obviously skilled, to have sensed the danger of her finger on a trigger, but he couldn’t see her from there.

She listen over the com system she had hacked as the man, codename Hawkeye, ran through a check-in.

Shit, he was good. She wondered briefly how angry He would be when she reported a flight of imagination had practically revealed her presence, but forced the thought away to prevent another mistake.

She let the rest of the meeting play out, and then watched as the Agents drifted away one at a time. Eventually, only Hawkeye remained.

If orders hadn’t been so clear she would have picked him off then. She suspected the group was SHIELD, but hadn’t gotten the proof she’d hoped for. Taking out an Agent might get her what she needed.

That and her skin itched to go up against him. Too often she was bored these days. So much so, that she suspected her assignments were being chosen for their simplicity. She worried that her innovation had come to concern whoever it was who handed down the assignments, but she wasn’t going to be able to do anything about it. If they didn’t believe that she was loyal by now, there wasn’t any more she could do. One can only walk willingly into fire so many times before it no longer impresses the audience.

Packing up her rifle, she hoped that something changed soon. Stillness threatened to break her more easily than torture had.

***

“You think it was a Black Widow?” Coulson pressed, and Clint gave up.

“Yes, ok? Probably because you got me all paranoid, but it was such a subtle feeling. Nothing was there, then there was…something.”

“And then it was gone again,” Coulson finished. “So you said. We’re still looking into it, but it’s seeming more and more likely. What’s your opinion on delaying the operation at this time?”

“There are over 50 girls crammed together in storage units that are praying we don’t.”

“Unnecessary deaths get them nothing.”

“We have more than enough men to pull this off this. We’ve worked at it too long to stop. It would make everything we’ve done a waste of time and resources.”

“Better than a waste of life.”

“Everyone on my team has accepted the probability that he or she will die in service to SHIELD. Those girls made no such arrangement. They weren’t born to be fucked to death in the basement of a night club.”

Coulson considered Clint for a moment. In his vehemence, he had leaned forward to place his hands on Coulson’s desk, making more noise than an agent chosen for stealth usually made.

Coulson slid yet another manila file across the desk. “This is everything we have on Natalia Romanova, who we suspect is your Widow.”

Clint opened the file. “This is a one page report, a single photo of a burnt-out mansion, and a list of names.”

“Exactly.”

Clint closed the file, worrying the corner back and forth with his thumb. “The names are her targets?”

“They’re her kills. We have no confirmed failed missions. All Black Widows have exemplary records. Or, at least, the ones still alive do. This one? She’s something else.”

“We can’t stop a mission because there are unknown enemies.”

“I don’t want you to call off the mission. It’s too central in our long term plan for Malak’s resistance. I want you to _consider_ calling it off.”

“Ok. Considered and dismissed. We’ll be careful. No risks.”

“No risks,” Coulson agreed. “No unnecessary risks. And if her handler does show up, as we suspect he might, use it. Don’t debate necessity. Shoot first. Our one successful take down of a Widow’s handler resulted in an immediate psychological break that took her to her knees.”

“What happened to her?”

“Interesting story actually. She transferred her allegiance from her original handler to the agent who shot him. Unfortunately, it didn’t last.”

“She turned on him?”

“No, actually. She scared him with her unquestioning obedience. His phrase for it was ‘unconditional devotion.’ He turned her over to some psychologists, because he said he couldn’t handle it.”

“You think he made the wrong call?”

“Well, someone made a wrong call. She killed herself the next day.”

“Just because he was avoiding her?”

“Because he rejected her. So trust me, Barton, when I say that taking out her handler will take her down.”

“Do we know who the handler is? Picture? Anything?”

Coulson shrugged

“Of course not.”

***

She sat at His feet, leaning back against his legs with her head on His knees. The debate bounced around the circle, her relaxed pose belying her interest in the conversation.

“She admitted to you that she thinks she called attention to herself. That’s the opposite of her job.”

As if she gave a fuck what _they_ thought of her performance.

“Yes, but she reported it. Voluntarily. If anything, this is an instance of failure.” He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder when she shuddered at the word. “It’s not disobedience. One could also argue that all she did was identify a particularly dangerous agent.”

“The fact that she reported it to you, frankly, does nothing to relieve me. She’s far too attached.”

“That was the idea,” He said dryly, and she smiled to herself.

“Your ongoing abuse of power and her disconcerting amount of initiative are no longer at levels with which we’re comfortable. I’m looking for proposed solutions.”

“To _what_? Your discomfort has no bearing without evidence that I’m not loyal to the organization. And our 'extra-curricular activities' do nothing but strengthen her loyalty.”

“To _you_. Her loyalty to you. My concern lies in the fact that there is no documented example of her loyalty to us.”

She smiled predatorily at the last speaker, causing him to fall into uncomfortable silence.

“Pet?” her handler spoke down at her. “Tell the men how loyal you are to them.”

“Not in the slightest,” she smirked.

There was a sudden uproar as everyone surged to their feet, except Him. She planted herself protectively in front, while He crossed his legs and silently dared them all. He didn’t even flinch when one of them pulled a gun.

Neither did she. She’d already identified and disable all the firearms when they’d first entered the room, before they all took their seats. The slide to the one pointed her her face was in her back pocket. When the man pulled the trigger, the empty click echoed.

“Perhaps,” He spoke from behind her. “You should keep in mind that I am not so easily removed these days.”

She longed to wrap her fingers around throat and crush bone, but He’d warned her that they needed the semblance of compliance to last a few more days. He’d also said that He had allies hidden in the group.

As the two of them withdrew from the room, she allowed part of her mind to begin contemplating the upcoming mission. Possible failure thrilled through her, because He was never so proud of her as when she’d done the impossible. Hawkeye promised to be interesting.

***

“Set range 1 check. Standing by.”

Even after the updated brief, his whole team had voluntarily agreed to risk the mission. It was strange to feel pride in other people, but it was also oddly satisfying. He could easily get used to the feeling.

“Set range 2 check. Standing by.”

Carter’s team was set at the twin entry points on either side of the warehouse. Everyone was eager to pull the chained girls to safety. It would have been amusingly cliché if the files hadn’t been so horrible.

“Set range 3 check. Standing by.”

“Carter, you’re good to go,” Clint said.

He’d opted for a four-point coverage of the room below. He himself was in the center at the skylight, with the only completely clear sight in the op. Baranov and Williams could each see separate corners, while Lutz covered the south door from his customary long-shot distance.

On Clint’s order, Carter and the rest of the his strike team burst through the two outer doors. Firing continuously, they made their way across the open space toward cover.

In less than a minute, the guards on the ground floor were dead and everyone prepped for the rest of the small army to emerge from the basement.

The room stayed quiet.

“Did I miss something?” Retzker asked over the com. “They have to come out of there at some point, right?”

Dread filled Clint. “Check-in!” he demanded. “Range 1.”

Nothing.

“Range 2?”

Not even static.

“Range 3?”

“I’m here, Hawkeye. But you’re the only other one I see on the roof there.”

On instinct, Clint flipped over onto his back. He was just in time to get a protective knee up to separate himself from the shadow that slammed into him. Her knife barely missed his throat as he used the leg to throw her back.

Recognizing his indefensible position, he hooked his belay device and flipped himself over backwards to crash through the skylight. He was quick enough that he didn’t get vivisected right there, but not quick enough to avoid her completely. The stiletto knife sliced his leg down to muscle in a two-inch gash. Worse, she got her fingers in his belt, pulling herself over the edge with him.

They both crashed through the glass, arms over their faces to protect their eyes. Stuck together in a barely controlled fall, they each had 40 feet to contemplate their next move.

Natalia decided to leave Hawkeye upon impact. She would jump away to find cover. From there, she would flit between pylons and systematically eliminate the 10 on the ground. Hawkeye was injured and could be dealt with afterward. She hoped he would still give her a challenge, but with that wound she doubted it. It wasn’t serious, but it would impair his moments enough.

Clint’s plan relied less on his physical prowess and more on luck. Coulson had seemed to indicate that this Black Widow’s handler was here somewhere. There was only one place Clint could think of where he might be. And even if the basement turned out to be empty, it’d give better cover than open expanse.

When Clint hit the ground, he rolled toward the basement. Reaching back, he unslung his bow, his rifle having been left on the roof. By the time he was kicking the door open, he already had an arrow notched.

A small Russian man in his late 40s stared up at the sudden light. It was hard to see the gray in his blond hair, but the wrinkles around his eyes gave it away. He almost looked fatherly. Caring. Clint had read enough about the Black Widow program to know better.

“ЛЮБОВЬ!” she cried, and Clint loosed the shot, knowing how quickly she would move.

He heard the slide of feet as she rushed from cover only to fall on her knees with a scream. Clint should have known better than to expect a high pitched wail. Her scream was like the rest of her, wild and strong. It was a battle-cry, even as she buried her face in her hands.


	2. Chapter 2

Time is impossible. Regardless of its existence as a social necessity, it defies the laws of any understanding there is about people themselves. Natalia Romanova watched the only person she knew take an arrow through the ascending aorta in a moment that extended for a thousand years. At the same time, she blinked and missed it.

***

“Sweep the warehouse!” Clint called over the coms. He kicked the basement door shut, not knowing if anyone else was down there, and advanced on the screaming girl. He had another arrow notched, and she still hadn’t stopped.

“Hey!” he snapped. “Deep breath!”

She complied immediately. Coulson had advised against hesitating to take a kill shot, but her immediate compliance made him slow his advance.

Hadn’t Coulson also said something about Black Widows being unable to continue after the death of their handlers? Rather than sweeping up into a devastating attack, she had curled herself tightly, now deathly quiet.

Not that Clint was going to get within arm’s reach. They remained at stand-off until the room was declared empty. Unfortunately empty. The kidnapped teens had been moved.

Retzker approached Clint from the other side of the woman. “She’s the Black Widow?”

“Looks like it.”

“You gonna shoot her, or am I?”

Clint watched a shudder run through the girl, but she didn’t so much as twitch up. “I don’t think either of us should do that.”

“She killed Baranov and Williams!”

His voice was loud and angry and as it echoed in the room, she moved. With a speed that caught Clint’s breath, she surged up and disarmed Retzker, throwing his gun across the room. Before he could respond she had backed away, again out of his reach.

Thinking back later, Clint could never give a sensible answer for why he hadn’t killed her right then. Sometimes he thought it was because he didn’t want to shoot a broken girl in the back. Mostly he figured he hadn’t wanted to risk missing the lightning-fast target and hitting his own man instead. And sometimes he thought he’d already figured it out. That he just _knew_.

Once the gun was clear, she remained standing still, between him and Retzker. She was mumbling over and over again. Risking a step closer, Clint realized she was saying something in language after language, flipping through them like other people flip though radio stations.

“Look at me,” he said. Retzker was standing frozen, as if trying to decide if her speed had been an illusion, or if she really could kill him before he got his handgun out.

At Clint’s order, Natalia turned 180 degrees, now presenting her back to Retzker. Clint waited for a langue he knew, awed by the number of tongues at her disposal.

There. Czech. She was saying “command me.” Every way she knew how.

Behind her, Retzker pointed to his handgun, eyebrows raised in question. Clint shook his head, then answered out loud. “No. No I don’t think it’s necessary.” He lowered his bow and snapped his fingers at her face. “Hey. Natalia, right? I’m not going to shoot you. Unless, of course, you make me.”

She shook her head violently, still whispering her way through the world’s languages.

“Stop that. Be quiet.”

She complied.

Clint took a few more steps forward, now within arm’s reach. “Why did you attack Retzker just now? The man behind you.” He suspected he knew the answer, but he was hoping he was wrong.

“I thought he was threatening you. I didn’t know it was wrong. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She fell back into the pattern of languages, this time repeating an endless apology.

Clint reached out, put two fingers under chin, and lifted her face to look at him. She immediately sunk to her knees, taking Clint’s hand with her to cup her face. The rest of Clint’s team looked on in wary shock. All guns were now trained on her.

“Fuck,” Clint wore. “ _Fuck,_ no! Coulson? She imprinted on me.”

“So I’ve been hearing.”

“And you’re ok with this? I am not ok with this.”

“It was a possibility we discussed.”

“Coulson!”

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you, Barton.”

Retzker had walked around Natalia to stand next to Clint. “See if she knows where the kids are,” he suggested.

There was a possibility. “Hey,” he called down to her softly, and suddenly her eyes were looking up at him with alarming intensity. He gently untangled his hand from where she clutched it against her face. “Do you know where they took the kids? We were here to get them, so if you could help with that…”

She stood up, answering in accent-less English, “The girls are being moved to the pier. Malak had it done this morning, to prepare for you. They’re being shipped downstream first thing tomorrow.”

“Can you take us there?”

“Yes.” Everyone just stood around for a silent moment, until Clint gestured impatiently with his bow. “Well?”

“It’ll be fastest across the rooftops. Can you keep up?”

“Obviously not in this condition.” Reminded of the wound, his leg started hurting again. He needed to get that seen, so he could make sure there wouldn’t be permanent damage. Instead, he dug into one of the many pockets on his uniform and pulled out a tracker. He tossed it to her, and she caught it without taking her eyes off him.

“Lead them to the girls?” she asked.

Clint nodded. “Go, and it’ll give them the location. They’ll take over from there. Once they engage, break off and come back here.” For all Coulson’s stories about mindless devotion, he was not going to send her to fight alongside his team. Especially without him there to supervise. Coulson had mentioned that, too. The more separated she was, the more likely she’d become unstable.

He was a little surprised to find her still standing there once he’d given the order. She looked like she was expecting something, and Clint wondered if there was some sort of command word he was supposed to give.

“Hey!” Retzker shouted. “This is not when we waste time, little girl. This is when we move.”

“What he said,” Clint echoed.

She was off like a flash, halfway across the room before her audience noticed she was moving.

Chez whistled. “She’ll be nice to have on our side.”

“Only if she stays there,” Retzker muttered, retrieving his gun.

Clint wasn’t sure which option would be better. Either way, he suspected he’d be off of active duty for longer than he would like.

***

While Natalia was making her shuttle run, Clint spent the few hours talking through the situation with various “experts,” while the onsite medic patched up his leg. They all assured him the injury would heal completely, with very little therapy. Clint was more concerned with his other problem.

“It’s not like I can take her into the field,” he complained.

“Not right away,” the psychologist answered. They’d been debating the finer points of Stockholm syndrome for almost an hour. Clint had a running list of rules in his head.

Some of them made sense. Make the boundaries clear, stay calm, reward good behavior, praise excessively. Some didn’t make as much sense. Don’t interrupt her reflexive habits, let her apologize, find a way to deter bad behavior. They made him feel like he was training a dog, not a person.

Despite his misgivings, he ended up nodding his way through explanations of panic attacks and broken routines.

“Try and treat her similarly to how she has been treated her whole life, without compromising your moral obligations. We suspect that our previous Widow broke because she remembered that she’d changed handlers. Have you ever ridden a horse?”

“I grew up in a circus.”

“Right. Of course. Well, you know how, when you’re on the horse, it feels like you shouldn’t kick it, because you might hurt it? But in the end, the horse is too strong for you to have much affect at all.”

“There are ways to kick a horse that can hurt it.”

“Bear with the metaphor, Barton. There’s not much you can do to this girl that will hurt her. Don’t be afraid to kick the horse a little. I know it sounds harsh, but stop thinking of her like a rouge agent. This isn’t someone who defected to us. There aren’t psychology questionnaires or secret loyalty tests. She’s a Black Widow. A weapon. Natalia Romanova isn’t in there. Or, if she is, she’s buried too deep.”

“I understand, ok? I don’t like it, but I understand. What I keep coming back to is: how this will affect my duty-status?”

“Well,” the man on the other line was obviously uncomfortable. “It’s advised that you stay on base for some time. This is a valuable opportunity.”

“For everyone except me!”

“Barton,” Coulson admonished from the other line. “This is about more than you. She is a lost girl, who won’t be able to understand why her presence frustrates you. If that’s not enough, remember that this is an asset to SHIELD, now. She’s going to be used as data, either way. I’d personally prefer it if she ends up filed under ‘survived’ rather than the alternative.”

“You’re saying that if I’m more useful babysitting on-base than leading a team off-base, then I should just shut up and be grateful?”

Clint heard the distinct static that told him the conversation was now only between the two of them.

“I’m saying,” Coulson answered, “that you should think back to when you were first brought in. I’m saying that you should think about all the time spent putting you back together and turning you into an agent. Those were a lot of hours that could have been spent in the field. I, personally, don’t regret them. I’m trying to give you the opportunity to see this in the same light.”

Clint bowed under the gentle, but firm, admonition. “Yeah, ok. I’ll give it what I can.”

“Good.” Coulson clicked his own com off, leaving Clint alone with his thoughts. The medical team that had been with him had already disappeared to see if they could help the recovered girls. He breathed deeply in the silence.

“I’ll just think of it as a deep-cover assignment,” he said to himself. “Which is not technically wrong.” He glanced down at the tracker to check on Natalia’s progress.

“Holy fuck!” he shouted, twisting around and jumping to his feet to come face-to-face with her standing behind him. “Am I going to have to put a bell on you?”

She didn’t respond to the question verbally, but seemed to quail at his anger. It frustrated Clint. There were very few people skilled enough to sneak up on him like that. Harper lorded it over him every time she got the drop on him, but Natalia was acting like a kicked dog.

“I led your team to the girls,” she stated.

“Yeah. I heard. I’ve still got a radio on. I just didn’t know you were back yet.” He paused for a moment, adding up times in his head. “How are you back so quickly? Did you purposefully slow down on the way there?”

It seemed like a gentle question to him. In fact, he’d edited it to be less accusatory. Despite his efforts, she went to her knees in a heartbeat.

“I’m sorry, I thought you wanted me to let them keep up.”

He let her stay on the floor while she went through her apology, and then spoke, “You’re not in trouble, Natalia.” She shivered when he spoke her name. “I just didn’t understand. And that was a perfectly acceptable explanation, so I do now.”

If he’d had his doubts about the praise thing, they fled with the answering expression on her face. He’d never seen anyone that happy. It was unnaturally happy, and a hundred times better than any other expression he’d seen of hers yet.

He sat back down on the crate, when he realized that she wasn’t about to get back up off her knees. The instant he was seated, she moved closer to him and leaned one side against his legs. It made him feel like he was training a dog again. Or had a child. What was the saying? Never work with kids or animals.

The thought must have shown on his face, because she ducked her head down to look at the floor again.

_I’m not cut out for this. I’m jerking her emotions around like a ragdoll. If I can’t get through one conversation, how am I supposed to get through days, much less weeks?_

“So,” he started, and he knew she was listening. “You and I are about to head back to an outlying base. But I thought we should take a moment to lay down some ground rules. Ok?”

“Yes, sir.”

“First and foremost, all the people stationed there at the base are my allies. Some of them are my friends. If you only remember one thing, it had better be this one: don’t hurt anyone at the base.” He thought for a moment. “Unless I directly tell you to. Without room for interpretation. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

She looked comfortable, which was weird. She was relaxed, picking at a loose thread on the hem of her uniform. Clint wondered how many mission briefings she’d gotten at the feet of her handler through her lifetime.

“The second one goes along with the first one. I have superiors. They’re going to be giving me orders. They might even be yelling at me. You need to realize that they’re not a threat. There will be trouble if you disarm someone like Director Fury the way you disarmed Retzker.

Third, you’re not to leave the base without permission. I think the goal is to get you back on missions sometime in the future, but it’s going to be a while.”

She had stopped picking at the thread and was now rolling the hem back and forth between her fingers.

“Finally, and this one is a little more difficult, I want you to ask me if you don’t understand something. I’m not going to get mad at you if you ask a question about something on the base. If you don’t know something, then you don’t know it. Just ask. I _will_ get angry if you could have gotten help, and don’t. It’s an unnecessary risk.”

_And we already have way too many risks at play here._

Natalia looked like she was thinking through Clint’s little speech. She sat in silence for a long time and then nodded. Clint figured it was as good as he was going to get.

“So, what about you?” he asked. “Anything you want to say?”

She twisted herself up so she was sitting on her ankles, her face much closer to Clint’s. “I’m sorry I disarmed Retzker.” Clint started to respond, but she was still going. “I’m sorry I didn’t go straight to get the girls when you asked where they were. I’m sorry for forgetting you were injured. I’m sorry I delayed on the way to the docks. I’m sorry I startled you. I’m sorry I was being a burden to you. Also, halfway back, I almost encountered the local security force. I hadn’t been paying attention as much as I should have and nearly had to engage. I’m sorry for that.”

“Nearly had to engage?” he echoed, trying to sort back out where all of her different apologies had come from. When she opened her mouth to explain, he shushed her. “No, I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as you’re making it sound. I doubt there’s anyone on the local force who would notice you walking down the street in broad daylight. Not if you didn’t want them to.”

“You’re right, of course. I’m sorry I was misleading.”

Clint put his hand over his face. “I’m really bad at this. And, I swear, if you apologize for that, I might just lose my shit.”

He spent a few minutes hoping the silence would hold, and then breathed a sigh of relief. Eventually, he got the courage to remove his hand from his face.

_If someone doesn’t give me something to shoot at soon, I’ll shoot something anyway._

After ignoring the realization that that’s what had landed him in this position to begin with, he stood up. “Come on. Let’s just get you back to a secure environment.”

She stood to join him, a confluence of grace that made Clint ashamed. To think he called himself lithe.

***

Natalia wasn’t sure exactly where they were going. He had called it base, but the plane wasn’t headed in a direction she recognized. She poured over the coordinates again, but none of the base locations she was familiar with were anywhere near there.

A shadow in the back of her mind warned her against the thought. Something there was dangerous to think about. She’d always trusted her instincts, so she let the problem go. It didn’t really matter where they were going anyway. She was just following.

She looked up from the consul to stare across at him. Light sandy hair and a young face. When he sensed her eyes, he looked up to stare back at her. Piercing eyes. She quickly turned her gaze back downward.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said.

“Do what?”

“Look down like that. It’s like you’re afraid of eye contact with me. It’s bullshit, because I’ve seen you stare down four people already and that was just on the way to the plane.” He laughed then, privy to some joke she didn’t understand.

He stopped laughing when she looked back up, obediently making eye contact. They stared for a moment, and then he roughly tossed the book he’d been reading off to the side.

 _I’ve annoyed him._ The thought startled her as he leaned forward to capture her attention.

“We really need to hash this out now. You don’t have to take everything I say as an order. Suggestions and requests are suggestions and requests. If I need you to do something, it’ll be clearly be an order. I’m used to giving orders. You’ll know it when you hear it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that. Again, I’m used to being ‘sir,’ but not all the time. We’re not in the field. You can call me...Hawkeye.” She caught the hesitation but dismissed it.

“Yes, Hawkeye.”

“Wow. Congratulations. You managed to make my own codename sound like ‘sir’ in my own ears.” He leaned back in the seat, to get a better view of her. She felt herself thrill in his attention, feeling his line of sight up and down her body.

“Anything you need?” she asked, hopeful. They were practically alone here. It was unlikely that the pilot would leave the cockpit anytime soon.

“Just wondering about you,” he answered. Which was a disappointment, but she hid it completely.

“What were you wondering that you don’t already know?”

He seemed uncomfortable at that, and said, “Let’s just ignore that, for now. Let’s play at not knowing. If I’d just met you, if I weren’t me, what would you say to me?”

“I wouldn’t say anything.”

“Nothing? Nothing at all, in this small plane? You’d just sit there, for four hours, in absolute silence?”

“What am I supposed to say? Are you a target? Or are we supposed to be discussing an upcoming mission? Am I gauging your level of competence?”

“You’re not very good at hypothetical situations, are you?”

“I’m _very_ good at hypothetical situations. You’re not giving me enough data.” Her tone was dangerously close to annoyance, and she cast her eyes back down. Why was he playing this game with her?

“I’m sorry. You’re right. Your life is constructed from hypothetical situations.” His tone was soft, but she knew better than to think soft couldn’t be dangerous. She could be soft, too. The apology didn’t help either. He was always “sorry” when he had to hurt her.

“I’m trying,” she said, for all it was worth.

“I know. I’m the one who wrongly chose not to believe you. You said you’d just sit there in silence, and now I realize you meant it. How about this? Let’s say you’re on surveillance. You’re sitting in Belize in an outdoor coffee shop, and you’re trying to maintain your cover. You’ve got three or four empty coffee cups on the table and a book in your hand. You’ve been here for hours, because you paid a lot for this study abroad experience, and you’re going to get the most of it. Suddenly, a native fellow-student sits down across from you. He greets you, and you know you can’t tell him to fuck off without risking your cover. What do you say?”

“¡Oye, que bien hueles!”

Clint laughed. “The straight forward approach. I like it. He flirts back. What are you going to do next?”

“Start asking questions about growing up in Mexico. Try and find any inconsistencies in his story. It’s suspicious that _he_ approached _me_. Hint at being afraid of…whatever it is I’m here to survey. Explained that my cover identity has heard rumors they’re dangerous around here. For example, my parents are concerned that I’m going to get kidnapped or killed or whatever. See how he responds.”

“Not necessarily subtle.”

She shrugged. “It is when I do it.”

“Conceded. I-” He cut himself off, hesitated, and continued, “I forget how easily you put people at ease.”

The pleasure of the compliment felt like a hot white light. She smiled, bathed in it. Adoring.

“Can I, please?”

“Can you what?” He asked. Bantering with her, because he always knew what she wanted, but he liked when she asked out loud.

“Can I sit there with you?”

A new reaction flitted across his face, smoothed down quickly by his training. It was only because of her own training that she saw it at all. Not that it left her able to identify it. Had she annoyed him? No, she’d know if she’d done that.

Her concern melted a little when he nodded his acquiescence, and she slid out from her chair onto the floor, to pool herself by his feet. She’d figure out his new expression soon enough. Her life was a game of trial and error, and this was just a new round.

As she drew near, she still partially expected him to part his knees for her to settle between, but he moved them both to the side, giving her room between him and the wall. She folded herself there, back against the wall of the plane. She settled one foot on either side of his own, to hold him between her.

She looked up, but he wasn’t paying attention anymore, gazing intently out the window. It didn’t hurt her too deeply. There were large scale events happening all the time that he needed to be thinking through. She was content where she was.

***

Clint kept his gaze out the window after she moved. Even when his neck began to hurt and his legs became restless, he breathed through it, imagining he was waiting for a good shot. He developed a spasm in his shoulder, and counted every time it twitched. He held his statuesque pose, because he knew, if he looked down, he’d give away his thoughts. He wasn’t sure if he was feeling revulsion, confusion, panic, or anything in-between, but he knew she wouldn’t like whatever it was.

The hypothetical game hadn’t helped as much as he would have liked. It was always good to figure out the fallback tactics and surveillance style of a coworker. Sometimes it was very revealing about their nature. However, he suspected he’d need a more hands on kind of data to figure her. A part of him itched to see her back in action.

The other part couldn’t shake the discomfort at having a human being sitting at his feet. It was only made worse by the fact that she genuinely seemed to prefer being there.

However, as the flight neared its end, he noticed that he’d leaned back in his chair, at some point. He was no longer twisting his neck too far, but casually looking out at the approaching landscape. His legs weren’t stiff and ramrod straight, but relaxed against hers. Strangest of all, she had one hand gently encircling one of his ankles, and he hadn’t even noticed when she’d done it.

He looked down at the girl, because she was still a girl, despite everything. Maybe because of everything. Either way, she seemed peaceful, head leaned back against the wall. She appeared to be asleep, lips slightly parted, shallow breaths barely moving her body.

He looked away before his gaze could wake her, but he couldn’t stop noticing the calm warmth where her hand held onto him. Her grip was clinging, even in sleep.

For the first time, he thought he might actually pull this off. Maybe it was a perfect match. The girl’s problem was that she loved too deeply, and Clint knew a thing or two about breaking out of unhealthy relationships. If there was anyone in the world who could be considered an expert on severing all emotional ties, it was Clint.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for brief reference to past sexual abuse.

Arrival back at SHIELD was a cacophony of opinions. After just a few moments of argument and increasingly personal insults, Clint withdrew from the room, taking Natalia with him. She was growing antsy, and he didn’t want to push his luck in a room full of scientists.

“They’re pretty frightening,” he commented to her as they both recovered.

She seemed surprised at that comment. “I could have easily killed them all. Is that what you wanted?”

He sighed heavily. “Always with the killing with you, isn’t it?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Think back to rule one,” he chided. “What was rule one?”

She paled, and spoke quickly. “All the people stationed here are your allies. Some of them are your friends. If I only remember one thing, it had better be this one: don’t hurt anyone at the base unless you directly tell me to.”

_How often has she suffered at his displeasure, that the slightest rebuke quells her?_

“Very good,” he praised out loud. “That was word for word, wasn’t it? I couldn’t have even done that. New plan. How about you hang around out here, while I discuss things inside? I’ll come get you when I’m done. So, quiz: what are you going to do right now?”

_Wow, Clint. She’s lost, not stupid._

She answered him anyway, “Stay here until you come for me.” Then she hastily tagged on, “And do it without hurting anyone.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” He ducked back into the conference room, which had quieted significantly, and pulled open the blinds. A pale face framed in red hair stared back at him through the window. Her eyes tracked him as he moved down to pull the next window’s blinds, as well.

“I see why my predecessor found this unnerving,” he said, successfully bringing the room’s attention to focus on him. “Now, can we please talk about the quickest way to get her less…codependent?”

“I don’t thinks that’s the proper issue. I think it would be much more profitable to transfer her affiliation to someone else. Someone more suited to handler work.” The speaker was a thin man in the back. Clint dug around in his mind for his name and eventually remembered it was Harrison. Dr. Harrison, presumably.

“It’s not like she’s a new pet,” another doctor spoke from the other side of the room. “If we just transfer her around, we risk breaking her illusion.”

“Also,” Clint spoke up, “we should maybe remember that the only known way to transfer handlers is to kill the first one. A plan with which I am severely uncomfortable.”

His fears were not assuaged by the rush of overlapping reassurance from the various locations of the room.

Dr. Allen spoke loudly above the rest. “I’m with Barton and Dr. Jallal. The risks involved are too high. There’s so much we can already learn as it stands right now. Not to mention, should we stabilize her, she’ll doubtless be a valuable asset. Don’t prematurely dismiss our current situation just because it’s not ideal.” She smiled at Clint. “Please don’t take offense, Barton, but we all know you’re not the prime choice for this circumstance. You should be a more silent partner. There in the background while someone with more experience walks her through recovery.”

“Thanks,” he responded dryly. Before he could comment further, the room swept away in a new round of arguments. He placated himself by momentarily allowing a fantasy where he sicked Natalia on them all. However, he gathered his strength and dove into the conversation with a grimace. Bureaucracy had never been his strong suit. Where was Coulson when you needed him?

***

Coulson did, eventually, turn up, but only after the majority of the possible arguments had been whittled down to a more reasonable few. Once the remaining opinions had been presented, Coulson picked out the ones he liked best. Dr. Harrison was disappointed to have his transfer idea vetoed, but kept silent.

As Coulson maneuvered through the crowd, Clint watched in awe. It was always amazing to watch the man work. By the time final decisions had been made, everyone was either pleased or soothed. In fact, Clint wouldn’t be surprised if everyone left convinced they’d been vital to the current solution.

Which was, incidentally, Clint’s least favorite plan.

“I know,” Coulson placated preemptively. Everyone else had cleared out, shuffling past Natalia with as much distance as the narrow hallway allowed. Clint kept glancing at her, but she hadn’t moved. She hadn’t even sat down, regardless of the long hours that had been wasted on thousands of possible hypotheticals.

“You already made it clear I was stuck with her,” he sighed. “I’ve resolved to make the best of it. My frustration lies the myriad of other possible options, because none of them are the right choice. At least, not according to the data. Whatever that means.”

“It means that I, along with the top minds of the field, are ruling the statistical odds to be in favor of the current status quo. You’ll be good for her. Also, I know that this particular display of decision making has not opened your mind to the field of psychology, but please ask for help if you need it. I’d recommend either Dr. Allen or Dr. Jallal.”

“If I can’t get my feet under me in a couple of days, I’ll consider my options.”

“Consider away. But remember, she’s still human in there. At least, that’s the running theory. Don’t risk her mental wellbeing on your personal pride.”

“You never let up, do you?”

“I seem to be cursed with a confidence in your capabilities that you do not share. It makes me pushy. Now, why don’t you get that girl to someplace calmer? I’m sure she’s had more stressful days, but even the best soldiers need to rest.”

“She’s not a soldier. She’s a weapon.” The comment came out more harshly than he’d meant it to.

“She’ll become what you treat her as. At least-”

“That’s the running theory,” Clint finished bitterly. Coulson just smiled complacently, and let himself out of the room.

Clint remained, staring back at bright green eyes that stared back at him. She never wavered. It made him want to shake her; jar her head back in the hope that she’d remember how to be human. He kept thinking that, somehow, he should be able to translate his desire to heal her into actual healing.

But they just kept staring at each other, silent and separated by bulletproof glass. Eventually, Clint broke the eye contact and stepped to the door.

_No time like the present._

***

It wasn’t that long, all things considered. She’d waited longer just for his amusement, and this was business. She watched the degenerating argumentative nature of those within, and fought the urge to strangle hem all. Some yelled till they were nearly purple, and it was obvious that her handler-- _Hawkeye! She had to remember the new title--_ was beyond annoyed.

They were right to push against the opposite wall when they filed past her. Even though she kept her eyes on him, it wouldn’t have taken much of her attention to snap necks. However, her instructions had been clear, and she had more than enough restraint.

Eventually, it was just him and one other man in there. One she didn’t recognize. They seemed close, casually standing near each other. What was more was that Hawkeye was looking at him with respect. She quickly filed the man’s face away to treat the same. If Hawkeye thought the man deserving of his regard, then he was certainly worthy of hers.

Her heart fluttered when the man left the room, and she stared through the glass at her handler. With sudden decision, he strode toward the door and flung it open.

“This way,” he ordered, jerking his head for her to follow. She fell into step beside him.

During the walk to their location, she allowed her mind to wander. The walls were the usual pale bare grey, giving off the same familiar scent. All bases smelled the same, no matter how new or old. Even though this one had to be newer, the clammy rock had already been saturated with a thousand sweaty handprints. There was no scrubbing off the lingering human oil, even if someone had tried. It was home to her.

That or the dark of a restricted rooftop. Come to think of it, everywhere had its own scent. She briefly wondered about the possibilities there regarding interrogation techniques, and then brought herself back to the present. They’d arrived wherever they’d been going.

Clint scanned his handprint on a panel, and then swung open the nondescript door and disappeared inside. She lingered where she was as the door swung shut, trying to figure out what she wanted him to do. If it was to wait again, that was fine, but he’d been so clear that was what he’d wanted last time, and he hadn’t said any such thing this time.

He reopened the door again. “Will you get in the room?” She hurried to obey, chiding herself yet again. Maybe one day she’d be good enough to determine what he wanted before he had to waste the energy to tell her.

Once they were inside, she felt more comfortable. It wasn’t every day she was allowed into his bedroom, which this obviously was, but it was familiar enough that she knew what to do. She quickly positioned herself in a back corner while he got himself settled.

He wasn’t going through his usual routine, but nothing about this day felt usual. She could practically taste change, which was unsettling. Change always meant a new set of rules. He’d given her some of them, but she knew better than to assume everything was going to be that straightforward.

“So, after more effort than necessary,” he said, “they’ve agreed to let you stick with me.”

Her eyes widened. Had that been in danger?”

“Now, it’s important to note, that there are some things that could jeopardize that. Please don’t panic, because it’s not like that decision would be anytime in the near future, but if you and I don’t end up working out, they might decide to move you to another handler. I’m assuming you wouldn’t be a fan of that decision.”

“They couldn’t make me,” she stated, tightening herself in against the wall. Her spine was arched and her ankles tight together. “It’s your call where I go and what I do. If those bastards think they can just tell me to walk away from you and I’ll just do it, they haven’t been paying attention.” She should have killed them as they passed her.

“What if…Natalia, I have to wonder. What would happen if _I_ was the one who told you to walk away? What if I gave you to another handler? With my blessing.”

The world spun. Of all the threats he’d ever given her, that one was new. Pain and darkness and isolation were all temporary. She had been born to endure. But separation? What had she done to earn that threat?

“Hey, hey,” he soothed, suddenly sitting on the floor next to her and she realized she’d slid to the ground. “Stop. Stop freaking out like that. You’re frightening me. Breath for me. Breath deep and clear.”

She forced herself to calm. It took longer than she would have liked, but he threat had caught her off-guard. Still, whether it was failure or disobedience that had gotten her here, it was in her best interesting to comply with his command. She breathed on his count, in and out, until her whole world was his scent up against her.

“That’s better,” he praised. “So much better. I’m sorry about that. It was a stupid question. I was just wondering, and I should have kept it to myself. I shouldn’t have asked. Do you understand, Natalia? Are you listening to me?”

Why did he keep saying her name like that? It shook her underneath her skin. As if she could be doing anything other than listen to him after her actual name came off his lips.

“I wasn’t threatening you, ok? That wasn’t a threat, or a punishment. I genuinely misunderstood how badly the question would bother you. It was just a question. I know…I know you’d never leave me. I know.”

She stilled under his voice, allowing herself to uncurl. Eventually, the two of them were settled together on the corner of the room. Which was when he untangled himself from her and returned to sit on the bed. Was she to follow?

“Now, some more ground rules. You’re to share my quarters for now. It was deemed the safest course of action. For the time being, you and I are going to be inseparable. 24 hour treatment, if you like. I certainly hope you’ll be given more freedom soon, but no promises. It depends on how you do.”

He stopped, as if waiting for a response, and her “Yes, Hawkeye,” was a little too delayed to seem reflexive. She cursed internally, but he continued like he hadn’t noticed the hesitation.

“It’s important for you to note that I’m not going to be changing my schedule too much. It’s important that I continue my training, because who knows what’s going to happen. We’ll find something for you to do when we can, but I’m afraid you’ll end up bored more often than you’d like.”

“I’ll be with you,” she responded, shifting her position onto her knees. She crawled toward him, as cat-like as she could make herself, and was rewarded by a stutter in his voice as he tried to continue.

“Right. Um, r-right. I’m sure you’ll entertain yourself.”

“I’m sure I will.” She had something in mind right then, in fact.

***

Clint had known he hadn’t been doing stellar. He would probably never forgive himself for the “what if I told you to go” question. But he still thought he’d been doing a fair job of judging her reactions. It wasn’t like she’d been hiding them. At least, he hoped not.

Maybe she had, though, because he hadn’t been expecting this. He’d been warned, but he still hadn’t been expecting it.

At the first touch of her against his legs, he didn’t understand. She’d been all over him from the beginning, and it seemed to comfort her. So when she pushed his knees apart and slid between them, it took a few seconds for his mind to identify the circumstances. Even then, he didn’t quite believe it.

He was forced to accept the reality of the situation when she ducked her head to mouth at his pants zipper. Her hands slid a steady pressure up the inside of his thighs, and he felt himself twitch in response.

With a violence that surprised them both, he moved backward, across the bed. He was fairly certain he’d kicked her in the side, but he couldn’t tell from her reaction. She was just staring at him. 

_Fear._ He identified that emotion easily enough. Why the fuck hadn’t he been able to see “seductive” when it’d started? 

Because it wasn’t there. Because nothing was there. Just a blank response to an expectation. How many times had her owner fucked her into the bed, onto the floor, against a wall. How young had it started?

Clint had long been of the opinion that emotions were best dealt with by pushing them down where they could never be stumbled across again. He’d come a long way from that point, but not far enough to know what to do with this surge of fury when it hit him. The overwhelming anger misdirected itself.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?” He slid down the bed so he could stand up without stepping on her. He was mildly surprised to see her try to stand up to join him, and he felt a thrill of fear at the thought of standing face to face. So he pushed her back down when she tried to get up from her knees, and she pressed her forehead to the ground in response. Trembling. In fact, he was pretty sure she was trying to kiss his feet.

He fled the room.

Then he stopped in the hallway, still within arm’s length of his own door. He wanted to rush down the hall to Coulson, or even to find one of those psychologist and scream “You were wrong! I can’t do this!” It’d been ten minutes, and he’d already lashed out at her in anger. The opposite of his job.

But he couldn’t run away down the hall, and he knew it. He couldn’t leave her here alone for far too many reasons. She was a possible threat, and not just to S.H.I.E.L.D., but to herself. Coulson had specifically told him the story about the previous Black Widow who had killed herself, and it hadn’t been for entertainment purposes.

He steeled himself to go back into the room, running the lists of suggestions the “experts” had given him. He could do this. Agents faced less-than-ideal situations every day. He’d dealt with more unpleasant subjects.

He palmed the access pad to reopen the door and stepped back into the room. He wasn’t even almost surprised to see her kneeling to face the door, head bowed. He stepped past her to settle himself back on the bed.

“Let’s try that again,” he spoke gently. “Come here.”

She moved soundlessly up against him. He cursed internally when he saw the expression on her face, but pushed the feeling away. If she could ignore her own desires to please a man who’d tortured her into loving him, then he could ignore his own.

“Apparently, I missed a pretty important ground rule, Natalia.” She shuddered. “I know that my response to that was unpleasant, and I hope it means we won’t repeat that particular event. But, in case it wasn’t clear, you are _not_ here to be my sexual objective. In turn, I’m not here to be yours. Do not initiate sexual conduct. Do not expect, request, or attempt to manipulate a sexual response from me. Our interactions are to be non-sexual. Have I been clear, or do you need further elaboration?”

“I understand, sir. Hawkeye! Sorry! I understand, Hawkeye.” She buried her face in his knees, fingers curled tightly in his pants on the outside of his legs.

“It’s ok, Natalia.” Another shudder. “I’m not angry anymore. I’m sorry I reacted so strongly, but you startled me. I’ll try to keep from reacting like that again.” He reached out to run his fingers through her hair, since physical contact had seemed to settle her before, but got nothing this time.

_Have I already fucked up the tentative trust she had in me. Surely, her previous handler was harsher than I was. How do I bring her back down?_

He realized she was whispering against his legs and leaned down to hear better. She had reverted back to Russian, repeating an apology. He sighed.

“Natalia, look at me.” She shuddered again and he suddenly connected the dots as she turned her face upward. “Do you not like it when I say your name?”

“It’s fine!” she hurried to cry, but then seemed unsure what to say next. “It’s just…you…I can _feel_ …you can do whatever you want.”

“That’s not how this is going to work. From now on, think of it like graduating to a new level of training. You’ve earned the right to tell me what you don’t like. I’m not saying it’ll always change anything, but you’re not going to be in trouble for telling me. Lying to me, yes. I’m not a fan of that. But I need you to tell me. Do you dislike it when I use your name, Natalia?” Another Pavlovian shudder.

“It’s so strong,” she told him. “I can _feel_ it in me when you use my name. You didn’t used to use it so often. It accents everything.” She stopped, exhausted by her explanation.

Clint wasn’t sure whether that was a reason to stop using it or not, but eventually decided it would be good to reward her for being honest with him.

“What do you like me to call you?” he asked.

A string of pet names in a multitude of languages poured from her mouth. Eventually, Clint put up his hands to stop the outflow. He’d figure something out later. Something that wasn’t demeaning. Something that didn’t threaten to gag him every time he voiced it.

“So, back to my original question, have I made myself clear on your sexual advances?”

She nodded vigorously.

“Good. No problem then.” He leaned back and twisted so he was lying on the bed the proper way. He would have normally changed, but the incident had shaken him and getting naked seemed like territory he should stay away from.

“Now,” he continued. “I’m going to bed. Some of the higher ups want to meet you tomorrow, so it’s going to be a pretty stressful day. I suggest you get some sleep as well.”

He shouldn’t have been surprised to see her curl up on the floor where she was kneeling. He wearily sat back up.

“On the _bed_ , Nat-” He cut the name off. “Just, on the bed, ok?”

She managed to climb onto the bed without ever fully standing up, and curled back up, this time at his feet. Like a pet.

Clint gave up on verbal commands, and leaned down to physically pull at her. Though she tensed at his hand on her arm, she didn’t flinch away. Instead, she let herself be half-drawn half-dragged to lie like a normal person. There wasn’t enough room to avoid pressing together, and Clint desperately hoped he’d made himself clear on the sex issue. After another moment, he encircled her wrist with his thumb and middle finger, similar to her own hold on him during the flight.

At that purposeful contact, she finally relaxed. He let himself fall into a light sleep, unsure if he was more concerned that she would escape the room, or if she’d wake in a panic. She seemed to have no such concerns, and soon slept deeply.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning wasn’t as much of a shock as Clint had been fearing. While he wasn’t used to waking up beside people, not in his bunker anyway, she didn’t seem to mind much. She smiled up at him, no trace of sleep in her eyes, even though she’d just opened them.

“Early riser?” he teased. She didn’t seem to get the joke, but he didn’t mind. It was going to be a long process, and he’d resolved himself to it last night. “Let’s take a walk around the base then. We’ve got time before the meeting.”

It was early enough that it was technically the middle of the night, but the windowless underground hallways made sunrise and sunset rather irrelevant. In fact, he preferred the late/early hour. While SHIELD never really shut down for the night, the U.S. division slowed significantly around this time. The fewer people around Natalia, the better.

He slid out of bed and headed to the bathroom. Which opened up the first surprise of the day when Natalia followed him in soon after.

“Hey,” he shouted, trying to tuck himself back in. “Knock first?”

She seemed confused, but obligingly knocked on the still open door.

“Ok, come in, apparently. But we’re going to have to set up some boundaries on the whole timing thing here.” He shuffled around her to get at the sink and then glanced up at the mirror. Where he found Natalia’s reflection stripped all the way down and stepping into the shower. It didn’t help much, given the glass door.

“Boundaries!” he choked out, moving his eyes to the sink. His only succeeded in causing her to push the door back open to inquire what he meant.

“I mean that I’ll be outside. You…you just finish up.” He slipped out of the door and closed it. Thinking some more, he cracked the door back open and shouted through, “Have a towel on when you come out. For the love of everything, please wear a towel.”

He used the few minutes she gave him to search for something she could wear. He had some sweatpants and a couple hoodies that he figured would work. She apparently didn’t have a problem running around bare-assed, so he doubted she’d object to the inherent bagginess in wearing someone else’s clothes. Although, from what he’d seen, it’d be tough to make her look bad.

By the time Natalia had finished up, Clint had laid the clothes out on the bed and had a change of his own in hand. He realized he was missing some articles she might prefer to have, but he also figured she was a resourceful girl and would figure out how to make it work. He made a mental note to get down to commissary and consign a few outfits over to her.

When she did step out, obediently wearing the towel, he gestured to the clothes. “You can put those on, so you don’t have to wear your uniform. I should have thought of it last night. That thing can’t have been comfortable to sleep in.”

“I rarely wear anything else,” she responded, looking over the clothes like they were a language she’d never heard before.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Now, I’m going to shower. Is there anything else you might possible need in that room before I get started?”

She shook her head, still partially confused. Clint very much didn’t want to explain his particular unease and decided to forgo the conversation for the foreseeable future. He ducked into the bathroom, resolved to find a way to get a lock on that door.

***

They started the tour on the upper levels and worked their way down. By the time they got down to the mess hall, it was nearer the time that other members of SHIELD were getting themselves up, so the area was more full than the rest of the base had been. Clint was pleasantly surprised to find that Natalia kept from acting aggressively toward the people they walked past, and not-so-pleasantly not-surprised that she didn’t try to interact with anyone besides him.

Choosing his battles carefully, he located a couple of seats further away from the main group. He did wave at Lutz, who waved back. He also scanned the benches for Dr. Kay Holloway, one of the few people with a Ph.D. that didn’t annoy the shit out of Clint. Actually, upon further reflection, he decided that Kay would be an excellent point of reference for Natalia. While her major had been not-so-theoretical-after-all physics, she also had a background in sociology. Plus she was a genuinely good person. Natalia had a lack of those in her life.

Clint brought himself out of his musings to direct his new charge through the process of getting through the food line. She didn’t really need much prompting, and he supposed the instructions didn’t differ much from base to base, even when spanning countries. Which, come to think of it, was probably why she knew what questions to ask during their tour. It made him a little curious to see what another organization looked like from the inside. Maybe he could get a long term undercover assignment that would give him the opportunity to find out.

Or maybe he should just focus on the issue at hand for more than a few moments at a time. He gently herded Natalia to the seats he had previously chosen. Once he’d gotten her settled, he considered some possible conversation topics, but he hadn’t fucked up in almost an hour, so he decided to just eat in silence in order to maintain the streak.

The meal almost passed uneventfully. However, as they were finishing up, Benjamin Vassal showed up with a rush of youthful energy. He had a running competition going with Whatever-His-First-Name-Was O’Hare over who could carry the most trays back to the kitchen. As such, they were both running around the dining hall at all hours of the day.

Clint stiffened when Benjamin approached them, and he tried to wave the kid away. But the competitive spirit was fierce, and Benjamin either didn’t notice or ignored Clint completely.

Happily, Natalia managed to keep herself together, even when Benjamin appeared unannounced behind her. Clint knew she’d heard the footsteps coming, but he also doubted that she often had her tray whisked away from her with barely a “Areyoudonewiththisgreatthanks!” She flinched away from him visibly, and her fingers clenched the edge of the table enough to turn her knuckles white. As soon as Benjamin had rushed off, Clint stood up and moved around so he was sitting next to Natalia on the bench, rather than opposite her.

“Hey,” he whispered in her ear. “That was so good. See how well you handled that?”

Clint wondered if the various psychologists and social scientists involved in planning this “treatment” understood exactly how close she was to snapping. He wasn’t sure if it was worse if they had no idea, or if they knew and had decided to risk it anyway. He wrapped one arm around her shoulders and pulled her into him.

“Seriously. That was very well done. I’m proud that you didn’t act on your reflexes.”

She couldn’t hide her smile then. Naturally dark lips set against pale skin turned upward in unconcealed pleasure. It made Clint resolve that every time she did something right, he would praise her until she smiled. No matter how long it took.

***

The meeting with the authorities ended up being a little less “all party” participation than Clint had hoped. He’d known, realistically, that Natalia wouldn’t be a part of it, but he’d been hoping for a bit more than “Is this her?” and then a subsequent dismissal. And all of that had been from Paul Bradshaw. He technically led the Russian focus of SHIELD, but he’d also had more experience with Black Widows. Fury had flown him across the world for a hands on opinion. For all the “hands on” the guy actually gave Natalia.

At one point, Bradshaw turned to Fury and said, “she’s a little less conditioned than I’d hoped.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Clint interrupted before Fury could respond. He’d told himself to hold his tongue a thousand times, all the way up to the conference room, but he’d never been a hold-your-tongue sort of a person.

Bradshaw looked over his glasses at Clint, and then turned back to Fury without responding directly.

“She’s more present than previous Widows I’ve encountered. She’s more than a weapon, and you can see it in her eyes. She looks where the wants, judging the room without a direct order from her handler. She got too much ingenuity. It’s evidence of freedom of mind, somewhere in there.”

“Great,” Clint snapped back, even more annoyed at being ignored. “She’s fucked up enough as it stands, wouldn’t you say?”

“Barton,” Fury ordered. “Hold your tongue until it’s your turn.”

Clint fell into protesting silence, continuing to glare at Bradshaw.

“It’s impossible to say where this independence originates,” Bradshaw continued, unimpressed by Barton’s bluff of a death glare. “While it’s possible that she maintained some sort of personality through the Red Room training, it’s more likely that the transfer to Agent Barton has left a chink in her armor. Which is concerning. Should that chink widen, there could be some very unpleasant circumstances.”

By the end of the conversation, Clint was as frustrated by his own authorities as he had been by the gaggle of psychologists. As far as he’d been able to tell, no one really knew what was up with Natalia. They all had “helpful” advice, and they all had a thousand “concerns,” but no one seemed to envy the job Clint actually had.

Bradshaw had been particularly adept at hiding his ignorance. It had taken both Fury and Clint over an hour to realize that he didn’t actually have any solutions to present along with the problems he kept pointing out.

The high point of the day was when Bradshaw had said, “It’s not like that there’s anything we can do with this that will have a set outcome. You keep telling me that the consensus was to let her stay under the authority of this boy, but I can’t support it. I don’t know what it will do for her.”

Natalia had suddenly spoken, interrupting the rant. “Well, then. You must be invincible.”

Looks of confusion.

“Oh?” she continued. “Have you never heard the phrase, ‘what you don’t know can’t hurt you?’ Honestly, _sir_ , you’ve got to be the most invulnerable man I’ve ever met.”

It got her some incredulous glances, and Clint had to duck his head to keep her from seeing his grin. It wasn’t behavior he was going to reinforce, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to be discouraging it.

“ _You_ ,” Bradshaw spat, “are _not_ in the position to be throwing insults around. You are here on the whim of Director Fury, and you are only here until Agent Barton gets either himself or someone else killed.”

“That’s completely unnecessary,” Fury interrupted, fully prepared to say more.

But Natalia laughed. “I don’t mind, Director. It’s important sometimes, to see evidence that people don’t have to both live _and_ learn.”

It wasn’t long after that when Fury kicked the man out with as much courtesy as someone like Fury was able to muster. Afterward, he’d sworn for a while and then turned to Clint.

“Just don’t fuck the girl up any more than she already is. If you can get her to a state of mind where she’s actually useful, that’ll be good enough for me. Seems to me that you’re the one taking all the risks here. Seems that you should be the one to make all the decisions. Just, don’t do anything stupid.”

Which was a whole new level of frustrating for Clint. He’d grown up making his own independent choices, as much as someone like him had been able, and that had almost killed him. Or, at least, it had almost gotten him locked up in a cell for the rest of his probably short life. After his entry into SHIELD, he’d found himself at the mercy of orders more often than he’d expected from a non-official organization. He’d put up a show of resenting it, but he was secretly relieved. Sometimes. When he wasn’t busy being pissed at the rules that made life difficult for him.

The prospect of being responsible for not only his life but someone else’s as well was disconcerting. But then, he was trying to force Natalia out of her comfort zone and into the “real world.” He supposed it was only fair that he step out of his comfort zone as well.

Really, there weren’t a lot of excuses for him left in life. Bradshaw had told some nightmare-inducing stories about the Red Room that had left Clint nauseated. It was a wonder Natalia was able to string a couple of sentences together, much less fly across rooftops and switch effortlessly between languages.

Clint ended up spending the rest of the day back in his quarters, pouring through various reports concerning Stockholm Syndrome. It was frustrating, though not wholly unexpected, to learn that there were as many reactions to conditioning as there were people in the world. Clint was truly on his own. Sure, there were some ground rules, but black and white was for math, not psychology.

After more hours reading through Ph.D. ramblings than he’d ever wanted to spend on the subject, Clint threw the papers back onto the table in disgust. They slid part of the way across on the glass surface but didn’t go far enough to fall in a pile of satisfying mess.

Natalia had been taking the opportunity to stretch on the floor in some sort of yoga position that Clint had never seen before. He wasn’t sure if that was because the pose was too difficult or too Russian, but it made him want to try it. It had been a busy day, and that was always the most exhausting.

He slid off the chair to join her on the floor, getting a quick glance from her. She started to untangle herself, and he shook his head.

“No. I was hoping you would show me how to do that.”

If he’d thought praise had been her thing, it was only because he’d never seen her make _that_ face before.

“You want to work with me?”

When he nodded, she reset herself to her starting potion and walked him through the steps. Even though the poses were unfamiliar, he was able to press himself into most of them. It wasn’t until three-fourths of the way through, that he found himself having to cheat.

She laughed at him then, quiet and genuine. Afterward, she clapped one hand over her mouth, eyes watching for a reaction. So he laughed, too, and said, “If you’re the feline here, what does that make me?”

It allowed her to laugh again and she placated, “No, you’re doing very well.” But they both knew she didn’t really think so. Her pursed lips were making fun, and her eyes crinkled in soft amusement.

He abandoned her then, falling back on his own routine. They continued putting themselves through their paces together, purposeful breaths mixed with rasping fabric. They moved from stretching to working different muscle groups, making their way down through the body. Clint stopped first.

“Damn, girl. You’re going to have to show me where you get your endurance.”

“I don’t save anything for tomorrow,” she smiled at him. “I’ll deal with the next day whenever it makes itself known.”

“I’m not sure if that’s good or not. You’re going to break yourself one day, with that philosophy. Maybe think about slowing it down.”

She looked at him like that was some sort of test and answered carefully, “If I’m not at my best, then what happens when you need me for something I can’t do? I’m not allowed to fail. What if you were in danger?”

Her faced darkened then, and Clint rushed to move her away from that line of thought before her mind provided memories she wasn’t ready for. “I suppose that’s a fair point. But I’m not sure you and I believe failure are the same thing. Either way, I think we should rinse off and head to bed.”

Her face brightened again, and they stood up off the floor. He took a few steps toward the bathroom, and then glanced back. She was bouncing slowly on the balls of her feet, biting one side of her lower lip. It was so textbook “I want to say something” that Clint almost laughed. Instead, he asked, “What is it?”

“Do you think...” She ducked her head to avoid his eye contact and tried again, all in one rush of breath, “Sir, do you think you could train with me tomorrow?”

“Well, yeah. I thinks that’s kind of the only option open to us, right now.”

“Yes, but, like this. Both of us doing the same things.”

_How many things did he starve her of? Peace starved, love starved, touch starved, name starved, and now attention starved. They spent a lot of time and money on her for how little they seemed to value her._

“Of course, Natalia.” He purposefully let the name in. “I think we’ll be doing a lot of exactly that for a long time yet.”

After that, they did their little awkward dance to take turns in the bathroom. Clint reminded himself yet again that he needed to get her some of her own shampoo. He was starting to get used to her hair smelling like his, and that wasn’t going to get them anywhere.

Finally, she slid herself in under the covers, and Clint flicked off the light. He padded silently to the bed and joined her. Before he’d even gotten settled, she tucked herself in so close, she was practically on top of him.

It made him fearful for a moment, about giving her mixed signals. But then, he’d done such a spectacularly awful job of predicting her “cause and effect” rules, that he supposed it didn’t really matter. His signals didn’t mean the same thing to her as they would to someone else.

He repeated it to himself when she slid one arm over his chest and tangled one leg with his. He repeated it again when she buried her face into his neck, and he could feel her hot breath against his skin as she murmured something in Russian he didn’t quite catch.

***

The next day was more normal. At least, it was more normal to Clint. He stuck to his routine as best he could, although it was strange having a shadow with him. More than once, he forgot she was there and then came face to face with her at the most unexpected times.

He starting by hitting the gym for a warm-up, and then he headed down to the range. He always started with the rifles, because he disliked their feel. Any long distance shooting he preferred to do with his bow. Over the past year, as he’d learned to be a team player, he’d started to put it aside more and more often when he noticed it made teammates uncomfortable. No one seemed to believe the things he could pull off with a bow and a specialized arrow.

Once he felt he’d met his self-inflicted quota with the rifles, he moved down the line to some handguns, then onto his bow. He let himself show off with that one, because he doubted Natalia had ever seen someone using such a novelty. He glanced back to see her absorbed in him, although that really wasn’t anything new.

Since she was under the “specialist-decided” waiting period before she’d be allowed to use anything at the range, she was just hanging out behind him. As lunchtime neared, the range emptied out, and he decided to play a risk.

“Hey,” he gestured her over, and she complied immediately. “You wanna take a shot?” He held out his bow.

“I…I’ve never been trained on this,” she warned him, but he just shrugged.

“I know. Few people have. My original training was unusual to say the least, and it just stuck with me. Give it your best go. No consequences. It’s just a game.”

He knew she probably didn’t believe him, but he was eager to be able to do something she couldn’t. For all her adoring glances, Clint hadn’t technically bested her in anything. Sure, he’d managed to take out her handler, but “being able to kill a loved one” wasn’t really a skill he wanted to be boasting.

He slid the armguard off himself and adjusted it onto her. He had to play with the straps until he got it settled, but it fit well enough. He then coached her through the basics, wrapping himself around her to map out the stance and the tension. Her body molded easily, accustomed to learning new skills on the fly.

Eventually he stepped back and let her fire. The first arrow went wide, missing the target entirely, and he had to talk her through the panicked apologies. He gently coaxed her back into position with another arrow notched. That time she clipped the right side of the target.

Murmuring praises in her ear for her quick improvement, he guided in another arrow. This time she needed very little readjusting, fitting herself into form easily enough. The arrow clipped the left side, about as far in as the previous.

And so it continued until the quiver was empty. Natalia’s aim improved steadily. After Clint explained that he thought archery was better compared to throwing knives than firing a gun, her next shot landed another four inches closer to the center of the target than any of her previous.

“I’m honestly impressed,” he told her as he hopped over the divide to retrieve the arrows. The two of them were the only ones in the range by that time, and he figured he should get the girl to lunch. He doubted she’d ever say if she were hungry.

“You must have callouses,” she commented back, looking down at her own fingers. “And I don’t understand how you make the shots go as far as you do.”

Clint laughed as he pulled out the first arrow. “Different types of bows. Not to mention different types of arrows. And experience.” He was focusing his attention on refilling his quiver rather than on Natalia herself. Which made the sudden gunshot more of a surprise than it might have been.

The bullet struck the target less the a centimeter from his hand. He instinctively knew that its trajectory would have taken it just as close to his head. He immediately ducked down and rolled back behind the target.

“Sorry,” she laughed. “Did I startle you? This is closer to my weapon of choice. Knives when I can, but this afterward.”

She was holding the handgun he’d left on the counter when he’d decided to offer her the bow. She leaned over the edge of the wooden surface, still unknowing how many rules she’d just broken.

_What kind of man beats a girl into submission for sleeping in a bed without this permission, but lets her shoot at him without repercussion?_

The answer, of course, was a man so confident that he has already beaten her down often enough, that he knows it would never cross her mind to hurt him. And that didn’t even include the confidence he’d have to have in her aim.

“Is everything ok?” she called. He hadn’t moved from behind the flimsy cover of the target, and his stillness was clearly beginning to worry her. “I know I didn’t hit you. I’d never miss at this distance.”

It wasn’t that Clint himself was particularly upset. In fact, he was more than a little impressed. The problem was that he’d already broken some rules by letting her hold the bow in the first place. He’d risked it because Fury had unofficially given him free-reign on this “project.” He doubted free-reign included a non-agent shooting at an agent. At the very least, she’d broken some pretty serious range rules.

“I didn’t hit you,” she called again. But this time it was more an echo of a previous thought than a statement. She was degenerating in his silence.

So he stepped out from behind the target and continued gathering his arrows. This time, he kept an eye on her. She’d already put the gun back down and had backed away from the counter.

He lithely vaulted back over to join her and then finished returning the arrows to their place in the quiver before he turned to the confrontation.

“Don’t do that again. The rules here at the range are to make sure people don’t get hurt. You don’t get to break them any more than I do. I still wouldn’t enjoy being shot at in the field, but it’s completely off limits in here.”

“Yes, sir.”

He gathered up his equipment and turned it back in, continuing from there to the dining hall without another word. He chose the same table near the back, though this time it required some harsh words to some other SHIELD members to keep the rest of it empty.

They’d barely started eating when Clint heard his name on the overhead. Well, he’d known it was coming.

***

She couldn’t believe this was happening. She just sat there, repeatedly fluctuating between horror and incredulity, unable to keep up with the one-sided conversation. Her actions had gotten him in trouble, and he was taking the fall. The small angry man was yelling at him about responsibility and personal pride and who knows what else, and Hawkeye was just standing there and taking it. He stood at a soldier’s attention, and spat out “yes, sir” like a factory.

She longed to stand up and declare it her own fault, but she’d been told to sit still and be quiet. The only movement she allowed herself was her eyes, flitting back and forth, trying to figure out the reasoning.

Eventually the lecture, which she recalled almost none of, came to an end. The small man turned to her next.

“Do you understand what you’ve done?”

She wanted to snarl at him. To rise up and spit fire. But Hawkeye was standing behind the man, out of his line of sight, and watching her fiercely. So she put herself on autopilot, ignoring the lecture but answering “yes, sir” every time the man’s voice raised itself into a question or lowered itself into a command.

Before she knew it, they were both out in the hall again. During the walk back to their quarters, she went over possible ways should could apologize in her head. She wasn’t looking forward to whatever punishment he had in mind, but she was starting to look forward to making it up to him.

It was too bad he’d temporarily taken sexual pleasure off the table, but she’d always been a creative girl. She’d think of some new use for herself, and his eyes would spark with pride.

When they got back into the bedroom she stood carefully in the center of the room, waiting for his order. To her dismay, he sat down at the table and began going through the papers he’d flung across the table the night before. Did he mean to delay her punishment? To leave her hanging onto the knowledge of coming pain without release?

Worse than that, it meant she couldn’t really make it up to him yet. He was delaying his own pleasure, in order to teach her a lesson. It showed her to be an exceptionally stupid girl. He’d put thousands of hours into her, and she couldn’t even get in trouble properly.

She rocked back and forth from the balls of her feet to her heels. She bit both her lips inside her mouth to remind herself not to let out the whining keen that was building in her throat. It always annoyed him.

As if foreseeing his own displeasure, he glanced over at her and then ordered, “Just find a way to entertain yourself. Apparently, I need to spend more time reading up.”


	5. Chapter 5

Clint was becoming concerned. Over the days since her arrival, Nat had been become increasingly insecure in her decisions. She agonized over everything, most of them everyday calls that Clint _knew_ her previous handler hadn’t given a shit about. She couldn’t decide which food to eat first, she couldn’t decide what stretch to try next, she got on and off and back on machines at the gym so quickly that it made Clint feel sick. At one point she asked him if she’d pushed open the door with the wrong hand.

And that wasn’t all. Clint had to order her to take each shower, and she barely was choking down any food at all. The final straw came after he noticed her stumble walking down the hallway.

“Natalia,” she said, then cursed himself for the slip up when she shuddered hard enough that he could see it four steps behind her. He rushed to get in front of her and ended up having to physically stop her from continuing down the hall. When she physically ran into his hands, she leaned against the wall.

“What’s up with you?” he snapped. He hoped the anger would at least shake a reaction out of her. Anything, even fear, would be a welcome relief to the lethargy before him. But her eyes stayed dull. In fact, her whole face looked pale.

He briefly wondered if she were sick. He hoped it, really. A physical malady could be countered. Otherwise, he was running out of ideas.

Taking her face in both hands he forced her eyes up to meet his. In a stroke of luck, the florescent lighting caught her pale lips, and he got it. He understood the pallor, and the increased heart rate, and the cracking lips.

“You are fucking kidding me,” he hissed at her. She tried to draw back from him, which was the most concerning symptom so far, but she was too weak.

Clint berated himself. He’d spent so much effort making sure she forced a few bites down her throat every meal, but he hadn’t thought to watch her water glass. In fact, thinking back, she might not have even had one with her on the tray.

He dragged her back to the room, considering it was closer, and shoved her down onto the bed. He efficiently dug a water bottle out of his desk. He filled it with tap water and forced it into her hands.

“All of it,” he ordered. Robotically, she pressed it to her lips and began swallowing. Fearing she would choke herself, or throw up, he pushed the bottle down again. He cursed himself when some of it spilled onto her, soaking through her clothing. Worse was that she didn’t even respond to it.

“Slowly,” he ordered. Fuck, maybe he needed to get her to medical and set up an IV. He tried to think back to the last time he’d actually seen her drink enough of anything.

Through the next twenty minutes he step by step walked her through the bottle. She seemed more alert afterward, but less so than he would like. He refilled the bottle and returned it to her fingers. Taking her face with two fingers he forced eye contact.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re killing yourself, Natalia.” Shudder. “What if I needed you for a mission right now? What if someone infiltrated the base and I needed you? What if we got orders handed down and had to head out right now?”

“I could do it.”

“You are so deep in denial you could give my past self a run for his money. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

“I just kept forgetting.”

“Forgetting? You _forgot_ to drink water? It didn’t call your attention when you couldn’t open your mouth without splitting your skin to the point of blood? The only way I’ll buy that is if you’re saying you were distracted by something. Were you distracted? More importantly, are you going to tell me by what?” He leaned forward to put his mouth next to her ear and lowered his voice to a threat. “Or I going to have to drag it out of you?” She winced away, but he kept a tight hold.

She fought for a while, her conditioning to suffer silently warring with her conditioning to obey. Obedience won out.

“Please just punish me already. Please!” It started as a whisper, but grew as she continued. “I’m sorry that I shot at you, and I’ve thought about it all the time, and I realize why it was wrong and presumptuous, and I’m so sorry. Please just punish me, so I can make it up to you.” She was practically screaming now. “Just let me make it up to you. I can be good! I’m very good. You taught me to be so good. Punish me, please!”

He let her scream herself out until she’d exhausted the little energy she had left. Her head collapsed forward onto his shoulder, and he held her tightly, trying to separate his own emotion from hers. The skin on her arms and neck felt dry and drawn under his fingertips.

When she was done, he gently set her back up. When he was sure she wouldn’t tip over, he returned to the sink with the bottle and refilled it. She seemed even more pale, if it were possible, when he turned back. He crossed the room and pressed the bottle back into her hands.

“I’m going to leave for a little bit. I’ll try and be back within the hour. I want you to have drunk that before I get back, but not before the half-hour. And then we’ll deal with this. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

He continued to curse himself all the way through the halls down to Dr. Allen’s office. He threw open the door and, with his usual tact, announced his presence by entering the room and saying “I need to talk to you. But I have to be out of here in as soon as possible.”

Dr. Allen looked up from the photographs she had spread out all over her desk, apparently unsurprised by the intrusion. “Do you at least have time to sit down? Or would you prefer to stay standing and slightly breathless in a misguided attempt to continually remind me that you’re on a schedule?”

“Not very succinct, but very to the point. I like it. Now listen carefully, because I don’t want to leave her along for very long. After over two days of _forgetting_ to drink anything, including water, Natalia has informed me that she is wasting herself away because she’s waiting for me to punish her for something she accidentally did over two days ago. She also not eating, it’s a fight to get her to shower, and I don’t think she’s really sleeping.”

“The obvious question being, why haven’t you complied with her expectations?”

“I yelled at her a bit when it happened. And, more to the point, I had no idea until a few minutes ago _why_ she was upset. I thought it was just…I don’t know. Transfer depression or something.”

“And, of course, when you first became concerned by this depression, you immediately sought to get to the root of the matter, rather than continuing as you had and hoping against hope that the situation would resolve itself.”

“You’re not being particularly helpful.”

“Perhaps, next time you should submit a complete summary of your emergency with at least two days’ notice prior to your dramatic entrance. Working under those conditions, I can return to you a complete outline of my opinions and possible solutions. I might be able to swing a power point.”

“You’re doing this on purpose.”

“In case I was being too subtle for you, that was me recognizing that there is a problem, and complaining about possible solutions without actually doing anything.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?!”

“Yes, you are. Was there a particular reward you wanted from me for only waiting two days before you gave up and sought the professional help you’d been offered?”

“I get it. I’ll be more proactive in her care. I won’t chalk up the inconveniences of her issues as unsolvable for my personal ease.”

“If you actually abide by that resolution, you don’t need anything further from me at the moment. Sounds like I was helpful after all.”

“No, you’re not listening. You must make a terrible psychiatrist.”

“I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m a psychologist, Agent Barton. I don’t have to listen to anyone. But I understand what you’re asking for. I just thought you were smart enough that I didn’t have to spell it out. In short, give her what’s she’s asking for.”

“You all keep telling me to punish her, but _how_? You’re not giving me any suggestions.”

“Do a google search. There’s a lot of information and support out there in the online world. If you’re looking for a more immediate solution, I believe a belt or a cane is a commonly used method of more serious discipline in these sorts of circumstances. Or, at least, as close to these circumstances as I can figure. It won’t hurt her the same way it would hurt most other people.”

“You’re suggesting I strap her ass?” He let the accusation hang heavy in his voice.

Dr. Allen took off her glasses and folded them in her hands. “You think I’m getting a heady pleasure out of this thought, Barton? You think I’m vicariously living out fantasies through your unfortunate circumstances?”

The elegant librarian look diminished with her increasing annoyance. Instead, she looked more predatory.

“You’ve told me about a dying girl. She won’t eat, she can’t sleep, she doesn’t even wash herself properly.”

Clint fought the urge to quail back in the face of growing anger. Her reserved aura had completely dissolved.

“Do you know what acts like that? A sick dog. Your charge is behaving like a sick dog that might need to be put down. Is that what you want from her? You’d rather just sit around in your own comfort zone and let her fade away?”

“No, I’m just saying--”

“You’re saying her well-being is less important to you than your own self-imposed system of morality. I’ve got news, Barton. Her morality was fucked to hell. She had to create her own and it might not match yours.”

“I just--”

“I’m not done. Now, you tell me, is this going to be your hill to die on? Because it’s not the most difficult thing she’s going to throw at you. What if you fight this battle now and wear yourself out, along with the poor girl and all your support? And all just because it offends your delicate sensibilities to smack a girl who has had bones broken for similar offenses in the past? What happens when something more important comes along? For example, what if she thinks it’s kind to kill children, in case they face what she faced? That seems like it would be a more important issue, but then no one has the energy to overcome it, because you wasted your strength on a technicality. So she breaks, puts ones of your arrows through her eye, and leaves her body for you to find in your room. Well, I’m sure we’ll all sit around and think, ‘boy am I glad Clint put so much effort into sparing that girl a few bruises’ and we’ll all admire you for your kind and gentle spirit.”

“Ok, I get it!” Clint shouted. “You’ve made yourself more than clear.”

Dr. Allen put back on her glasses and immediately returned into the quiet woman Clint had first met. “I’m glad, Agent Barton. I’d hate to have to repeat this conversation. It bordered on the unpleasant.”

He turned to leave the room, but turned back at the last second. “You know. You’re a frightening woman.”

“Says the man who can pick off targets with a bow and arrow from football fields away. Go tend to your girl. And I expect a follow up meeting from you. Hopefully with a little more warning, but I’ll work with what I can get with you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

***

Clint paced back and forth in front of his own door for more time than he probably needed to. He’d resolved himself to the solution, but he wasn’t looking forward to it. He forced himself to think over everything he’d suffered growing up. He’d learned to endure as a child, but he’d learned to be strong under SHIELD, when Coulson took him under his wing. And Coulson hadn’t always been gentle. Well, the Black Widow had learned to endure. It was time for Clint to help her be strong.

He unlocked and then pushed through the door. Natalia was still sitting on the bed, and she was looking a lot better. He checked the bottle and was pleased to find it empty. He gently worked it out from her tight grip and placed it on the floor. Then he knelt down next to her knees, ignoring her discomfort at the rearrangement.

“Hey, clever girl,” he murmured. “Are you feeling well enough to get this over with?”

She clutched at his fingers. “Yes, please.”

“All right. Stand up and turn around.” While he hoped a future foray into the online world would give him more options, he’d decided to go with Dr. Allen’s suggestion for the night.

As Natalia stood facing the bed, he walked over to dig through his closet. He located an older uniform that had a leather belt he’d used to keep his bow flat during an air drop into some operation in south China. He unclipped it and wrapped it around his fingers.

The feeling of it was heavy in his hand, and he pulled at it hard enough that his fingers turned purple. The material held, despite its lack of use. Even a close inspection revealed no cracks or warped edges. He unwrapped the ends and readjusted his grip so he was holding the two buckles with solid leather hanging in-between them.

Natalia was still standing, facing the bed as she’d been ordered, thighs pressed against the edge of the mattress. As he approached, he expected to find her fearful but, when he came back into view, she reached out with one hand to trail her fingers along the leather strap, and then smiled at him tentatively. The relief was sharp.

“Next time,” he said, “just ask me for what you need. If you _need_ me to…if you need me to punish you, then ask me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re being so good for me.” He placed one hand on between her shoulder blades and pushed gently. She went over easily, bracing herself with hands splayed out on the side of the bed.

Clint stepped back and didn’t let himself think about it anymore before he cracked the first stroke down. He followed it quickly with a second and a third. She hadn’t moved or cried out. He hadn’t even been able to hear a catch in her breathing. He put more effort into the fourth stroke, and then his whole strength into the fifth.

That one pushed her forward with its force, despite her obvious efforts to maintain her exact position. However, she still hadn’t made a sound, so Clint continued with the same power. When he got to ten, still without hearing a sound, he began to worry. He’d known that he wouldn’t be able to _really_ hurt her, but he also didn’t want to underdo it. He was not eager to watch her inadvertently try to kill herself again. He _needed_ to establish himself as someone she could trust, and half-hearted plays for authority weren’t going to cut it.

He began laying in again with the strap, carefully lining up his strokes so the edges of the red marks just touched each other. As he continued, however, her skin held the red color more permanently and he soon had only his own precision to rely on.

Slowly, she started breathing heavily, and then erratically, but still was otherwise silent.

He walked around so he was by her head and leaned down. “I want to hear you, clever girl.”

Her breath caught at that, and he returned to his stance behind her. This time, rather than varying the hits, he laid down three in a row on the same spot. He moved down slowly, allowing the areas to overlap, laying patterns of three into her skin. He got his first sound when he reached the crease at the tops of her thighs.

It was a small gasp, and Clint would have missed it if he hadn’t been straining to hear it. Hoping to hear it. He paused for a moment when it came and then, without warning, delivered another three to the same place. It earned him another gasp, less quiet.

_About time._

He paused for a moment to consider the mottling skin, and then swung again. She startled at little at the sudden impact. “Be still,” he warned her. Precision was more important than ever.

He began to lose himself in the rhythm. Like drawing and firing a bow. Pull back, release, impact. Again. Pull back, release, impact. Again. His meditation.

Eventually, after her rare soft gasps had degenerated into little clenched-teeth hisses at every stroke, her skin broke. It brought Clint back hard to the moment at hand. Two red lines matched on either side of her thighs, just under her shorts. One of them dripped dark blood. Before he thought it through, he reached to wipe the drop away with his fingers.

She flinched at his touch, and he withdrew his hand shakily.

He walked back to the bed and laid the strap down where Natalia could see it was no longer in his hand. Then he smoothed his hands up and down her back. Her shirt was dry, although Clint instinctively knew it should have been damp with sweat. A couple of bottles of water was only a start on recovering from the last few days of damage.

He could feel her carefully measured breaths beneath his palms. She was recovering quickly, already regaining the little control she’d lost.

“Can you feel my hands?”

“Yes, sir.” Her throat was thick and Clint doubted she’d heard what he’d said as much as she’d heard his voice. He took it anyway, continuing to rub back and forth.

As he kept the steady rhythm, he calmed himself as much as he was trying to calm her. Warmth built up in his palms, numbing them through the friction.

He had the sudden image of what the two of them would look like if someone came through the door. Natalia’s bruised and bleeding ass on display with him standing over her. It made him jerk his hands back. They tingled with the sudden loss of contact.

Wary that his sudden motion had made her nervous, he sat down next to her hands, which were still splayed on the bed.

“You want to tell me what you did to earn being here?”

“I overstepped my bounds in shooting near you, and it got you reprimanded.”

“Both right and wrong. I thought you’d been thinking this over for days now? Maybe I should take the strap back to you until you figure it out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you keep saying. I’m not going to, though. You were right that you’re here because you shot at me. You were wrong about why that made me angry. Think back, because I’m sure that I told you right after it happened.”

There was a long silence then. Clint made sure to keep from touching her, admiring the steadiness with which she held the unnatural position.

“Because it was against the range rules?” Her tone was tentative and Clint rushed to reward the answer, covering her hand with his own.

“Very good. Now, can you think of why it made me angry?”

Another silence, but this time it stretched on. Eventually, her breathing started to pick up, shallow and too quick. He intervened before she could degenerate into complete panic.

“It’s ok. I’ll tell you. It’s because they might take you. If you can’t follow the rules under my authority, they’ll give you to someone they think _can_ make you obey. I don’t--”

He cut himself off as he realized what he was saying was actually true. He really did fear her being taken. The potential pain that it would cause her cut at him.

_When did that happen?_

“They can’t,” she objected.

“They can. That’s the problem. So, try and respect their rules, clever girl. They’re pretty serious about most of them.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I know, but it’s done now.”

“I…” she started the sentence but immediately bit her lips into silence.

“No,” Clint ordered. “Tell me.”

“I could take some more.”

Clint sat still, trying to untangle the motivations behind that sentence. She wanted him to pick the strap back up? Was that because she thought she deserved it, or because she wanted it? Both maybe? Or because it was just in her conditioning to ask for more until she was refused? To make her handler seem eternally merciful.

“I already decided that you’ve had enough, Natalia.” Purposeful.

She flinched against the name, but said, “Thank you,” and he had no idea if she was grateful for the stripes or grateful that he’d stopped. Either way, he settled himself further back on the bed and gently pulled at her arm.

“You’re done,” he promised. She followed his direction, breaking out of her position.

While he was trying to direct her either onto the floor or beside him on the bed -- he wasn’t sure which -- she crawled into his lap.

“Natalia,” he warned.

“I remember,” she reassured him. “It’s not, I promise. I just want…” She trailed off, at a loss for words.

He briefly wondered how her sitting on top of him could be anything _except_ a sexual advance, but he decided to trust her. Maybe she was in too much discomfort to think like that. Or maybe he’d underestimated just how touch-starved she was.

She leaned forward so their chests pressed together, and she buried her face in the curve between his neck and his shoulder. Cool air rushed against his skin when she breathed in, followed by warm when she breathed out. She didn’t move for so long that Clint wondered if she’d fallen asleep.

He rubbed gently up and down her back, pulling inadvertently at the thin fabric of her shirt. When his hands dipped too low, he could feel the heat radiating from her top of her ass. He kept his hands higher after that.

It was a long time before either of them wanted to move, but Clint’s arms began to cramp and tire. He shifted his position, and she drew back compliantly.

“Are we good?” he asked. Her answering smile was so bright he couldn’t doubt the sincerity. “Then how about you take a shower? And I want you to drink another bottle of water, too.”

It wasn’t until she was securely behind the bathroom door that Clint took stock of himself. All things considered, he didn’t feel too bad. He’d been worried that he’d taken it too far, but she didn’t seem any worse for the wear. If anything, she was vibrant.

It wasn’t until he heard the shower turn off, that he noticed the matching thin lines of blood stained into the fabric on either side of his thighs.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning, verbal and physical sexual harassment, including intimidation and non-consensual touching.

Clint woke up alone in his bed. Which wasn’t a cause for alarm until two seconds later when he realized what that meant. He sat up with a start and scrambled for his bedside lamp. After which he almost fell face-first onto the floor when he couldn’t get his feet clear of the sheets in time.

_How come I can make it across the entire city without touching the ground, but I can’t get out of bed in the morning unless there’s coffee?_

He pushed the frustration from his mind as he got to his feet. Now that gravity had forced him a little more awake, he realized that the room had been moved around. It wasn’t much, but the chair was minutely resettled, and the bathroom door was swung a little more shut. Most noticeably, the stacks of reports and hypotheses he’d left on his desk had been completely reorganized. Some of the papers were even stacked on the floor.

“Natalia?” he called.

When there wasn’t an answer, he made a quick search of the room. Not that he expected to find her hiding under the bed, but the week had been full of the unexpected. He didn’t want to raise an alarm and then have to explain why he didn’t think of looking behind the bathroom door.

He’d just come to the unpleasant decision that he’d have to officially report that he had no idea where his Black Widow had run off to, when the door opened.

“You’re up,” she smiled at him sweetly, a handful of files in her hands. “I ran down to Agent Coulson’s office and picked these up. I know you’re getting bored, and he wanted your input on these ops.”

“How did you get back in here?”

She laughed, and then quieted again when she saw he was serious. “Was I not supposed to hack the door?”

Clint threw his hands up in the air. “No, it’s fine. Whatever. I’m _surprised_ , but not as much as I thought I’d be. Also, new rule. I need to know where you are at all times. At least, for the present.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Whatever. Did you move my files around? And why were you talking with Coulson?”

“I organized the files by focus and then by year written. I also researched the educational background of each author. The information is on post-it notes attached to each one. The reports on the floor are the ones that you’ve already read through. The ones on the chair are the ones that don’t have enough sources or large enough study groups to be considered credible. And I was talking to Coulson because you’ve been been feeling restless, and I thought some more contributory work might help.”

_She’s figured me out in half a week while working under the disadvantages of dehydration and not knowing who I actually am. I’ve barely learned the first thing about her._

He sat back down on the bed.

“He cleared me for the shooting range, too,” she added, coming over to join him. She crawled past him and laid down on her back, stretching in the mussed sheets. It occurred to Clint that that couldn’t feel good at all.

“Let me see,” he ordered, and she immediately flipped over up onto her knees. She shoved the sweatpants down over her hips and then laid down on her stomach. The series of movements was lazy, like someone kicking off clothing in a house that was too warm. There wasn’t a wince of pain or a shy bid for privacy.

There should have been. Clint swore quietly to himself when he saw. He could see the welts caused by the edge of the strap and the bright red rash-like dots caused by the ruptured blood vessels the impact had burst open. All that besides the deep bruising, which wouldn’t fade for days and would linger for much longer.

“You can’t feel that? You’re moving around like it’s nothing.”

“Pain is all relative,” she said, reaching back and hooking one finger underneath the black underwear waistband. She pulled it down, simultaneously twisting around to look at the damage herself.

“Stop that,” Clint snapped, pushing her hand away so the undergarment slid back into place. She looked confused, trying to gauge how she’d done something wrong again.

He didn’t explain, but he let the discomfort fade from his face, rubbing her back again. She arched into it, molding herself under his hand. He supposed it was their thing now.

“So,” she purred. “What’s on the schedule for today?”

“You really want to get your hands on a gun, don’t you?”

“I miss it. I miss a lot of things.”

“Well, now that you’re actually _drinking water_ , I’ll trust that you won’t fall over on the gym equipment. Or were you thinking of something else? And please put your pants back on.”

“I was hoping I could spar,” she answered, shifting her weight around to get the waistband up around her actual waist. “I’m worried I’m losing my reflexes.”

“I seriously doubt it would happen.” He felt better once the bruises were tucked away. “And I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that yet. Maybe you and I can go at it sometime. But we can hit the range today, if you like.” He refrained from adding “Let’s see if you can keep from shooting at me first.”

_See? I am learning. I can do this._

***

As promised, through the day he let her play a more participatory role in his schedule. He thought she’d benefit from working off some excess energy before standing around at the range, so they hit the gym first. He reminded her of the “no sparring and certainly no hurting anyone” rule and then set her loose in the gym, figuring the etiquette of isolation would keep anyone from approaching her. He should have known word would have already gotten around.

He’d just finished a set of bench presses when he stood up to find a man he’d never spoken to before awkwardly standing beside him and shifting from foot to foot.

“Hey,” he greeted Clint. “You may want to get over to your girl. Or whatever she is. They’re kind of giving her a hard time.”

Clint turned to rush over toward the direction the man had been pointing. The scene he found made him wish he could sick Natalia on them without fear that she’d kill them all. Mark, and anyone who followed along with him, could always benefit from getting their faces rubbed in the dirt.

The aforementioned Mark and two other men had backed Natalia up against a mirrored wall. She had her face turned down and to the side, angling herself away as much as possible.

“Come on, girl,” Mark laughed. “I hear you spend plenty of time on your knees. I don’t see why it would hurt to give a little demonstration.”

“Yeah,” Josh echoed. “A little taste.” Bolder than his counterpart, he slid his hand between Natalia’s thighs, pushing in when she tried to tighten her legs together against him.

“Hands off, asshole,” Clint shouted. If they were trying to start a fight, they could have one.

Josh jerked his hand back when he heard Clint, while Mark turned toward him. “Just meeting your pet,” he scoffed. “Honestly, what do I have to do to get one of those myself? Tell us your secret, Clint.”

“That’s Agent Barton to you.” Not that Mark had been denied the title for lack of trying.

Most of the crowd that had gathered was quickly dispersing. Clint marked each of their faces, though, making a list even as they disappeared. By the time he actually reached the small group. It was easy for him to shoulder his way through to Natalia, where he stood like a shield.

“Aw, don’t be pissed Barton,” Josh tried to placate. “We wouldn’t actually hurt her. She was pretty complacent about the whole thing. It wasn’t like she told us to fuck off.”

“I’m sorry your understanding of body language is so basic you didn’t see her getting as far away from you as physically possible. If my previous orders hadn’t held her back, she’d have already expressed herself in a language you _do_ speak.”

Josh opened his mouth again, but Clint interrupted preemptively. “I swear, if I get any more pissed, I will tell her she can have at you. And she’s better than me, Josh. She’s good enough that I wouldn’t be able to stop her if she was set to kill you.”

“The problem there,” Mark drawled. “Is that everyone knows that’s a bluff.”

“Wrong,” Clint answered. He pointed back at Natalia. “She doesn’t.”

She was no longer turned away from the confrontation. Her eyes were bright and challenging. She leaned forward, stance on the offensive, confidence in her closed-lip smile. It was disconcerting, even to Clint, how much she was an entirely different person than the one she’d been under a minute ago, backed up against the mirror glass.

Josh took the hint, leaving with the rest of the lingering group. Mark, devoid of both audience and background track, was forced to retreat behind him.

When Clint turned back around, Natalia had already returned to her gravity-defying martial arts routine.

“You could have defended yourself, you know.” Although he knew she hadn’t known at all. “Just don’t kill anyone. Or permanently maim them. No broken bones would be nice, too.”

“It’s a risk,” she answered. “I can’t be sure I won’t lose myself in the middle of a fight. It’s safer just to wait for you.”

“Are you telling me you’re ok with what just happened?”

“More ok than I would be if I were to do something stupid enough to get myself given away from you. But, to answer the question, no. I was angered by their audacity.”

“Yeah? Me, too.”

“They should have known better than to touch your things without permission.”

Which wasn’t quite what Clint had meant, but he chose to leave the battle for another day. “Let’s hit the range,” he said instead.

She unfolded herself from her position of precarious balance. “If you like.”

***

The range, at least, didn’t have the same type of negative interaction. Which was not to say they didn’t gather a crowd. Natalia upstaged everyone there until she had an audience. People started suggesting trick shots and challenges, making a game out of trying to get her to miss. They gave up, applauding, when she made an impossible shot by ricocheting the bullet off of a metal roof beam.

Clint couldn’t help but take pride in the congratulations they gave her. Plus, every time they praised her, she turned back for his smile.

The two of them stayed at the range until it closed, and, even after so many hours, she seemed disappointed to return the weapons.

***

Through the next few days, Clint made sure to keep a better eye on Natalia, but he still had the unfortunate naiveté to assume that the worst was past. She’d managed to keep out of trouble for a few days, and he thought maybe she’d figured out how the base worked enough to begin to function properly in it.

It wasn’t until he got out of the shower about a week later to find her on his laptop, that he realized something was up. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been told to _not_ get on his laptop. It was just that it was biolock protected.

“Um, what are you doing?”

“Research.”

“Before I open up the can of worms _that_ line of questioning will doubtless incur, I have to say: that was locked.”

“Was I not supposed to hack it?”

“Why don’t we just assume that anything on base that’s locked, you’re not supposed to hack. You’re not in trouble, but it’s a new rule. Now, I shudder to think of what you’ll say next, but what are you researching?”

“Some background information on Mark Lexington, Josh Carver, and Hamil Nabishan.”

“Fuck, no. _Why_?”

“I’ve been anonymously blackmailing them for the last week or so. It took me a while to figure out the best information to use, but it’s been a source of amusement. I didn’t tie it back to you. I knew you wouldn’t like that. Still, I’m occupying myself.”

“Are you that bored? Don’t answer that. More importantly, what are you blackmailing them to do? Come to think of it, what are you blackmailing them with?”

“Little things, mostly. They wouldn’t still be here at SHIELD if there was serious info that I could get in less than a week on a laptop this un-upgraded.”

“Tell me these ‘little’ things.”

“Mark uses the technology here to predict game scores and, a couple of times, to fix the numbers so the the statistics are in his favor either way he bets. He’s also keeping a mistress on the side. Which isn’t so uncommon, except he’s also got a girlfriend. This is all besides the wife. The wife is clueless. The girlfriend knows about the mistress, but not the wife, and thinks it’s just a “open minded relationship.” The mistress knows about the wife, but not the girlfriend. He also might have a kid, but I’m having trouble figuring out for sure without being onsite to collect a DNA sample.

“Josh Carver was actually more difficult. I found a series of sexual harassment charges, but I ended up having to go more circumstantial for him. I tied him back temporally and geographically to a child trafficking ring that was running about a decade ago. I wasn’t sure he was involved, since he left before it got uncovered, but he responded to my not-so-subtle accusations like a guilty man, so it was a good shot in the dark.”

“SHIELD wouldn’t…” He trailed off as he thought about his own past. Who was he to say what crimes were forgivable to them?

“Hamil Nabishan is turning out to be more difficult.”

“I’m assuming that was the name of the other man? The one on the right of Mark?”

“I’m finding some questionable proceedings during some black ops missions, but I’m having trouble getting details. More importantly, I’m also guessing SHIELD already investigated enough to know as much as they want. It’s redacted in his file, but it’s there. So I’m not sure who’d I’d threaten to tell. There’s no family. I might have to take a different route with him.”

“For the love of everything, _why_ did you do this? What are you getting them to do?”

“Right now I’m just making them marvelously uncomfortable. Why? Do you have a particular request? There’s no way to tie this back to either you or me, so the world is open to you. I could probably get them executed, given enough time, but that’s a little straightforward.”

“I need to get you cleared for ops. I really really need to get you cleared for ops. Let me be clear. New rule: no blackmailing. Not without discussing it with me first. And I’m officially cutting you off from the the three of them. Leave them alone. If you start digging around into the pasts of people associated with SHIELD, you’re going to learn some things that I’d rather not hear. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Speaking of new…things. Worst segue ever, I know, but bear with me. If you’re not desperate for sleep, I’ve got a slightly different plan for tonight. If you’re up for it.”

“Of course.”

“How’s your climbing?”

***

It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy the normal training with him. Just working through her paces, stretching, pushing, struggling, was enough. But it had been so long since they’d done something that was just them. In fact, the last time he’d really gotten at that itch under her skin had been when he’d strapped her. So it’d been even longer since she’d had any one-on-one when it wasn’t a punishment.

She followed, sashaying along beside him in the empty hallway. “Where are we going?”

“To get the big picture. Remember, it’s easier to see from a distance.”

“It makes evisceration a little bit more difficult. But then, that’s more my thing than it is yours. So, we’re going someplace where we can climb, right? Is that why we’re out avoiding the midday rush? Or the any type of day rush?”

“You’re enthusiastic tonight.”

“I’m reveling.”

“I’m flattered.”

She reached over and entwined her fingers with his. “Is it too on the nose to ask if I can drop things on people? I’m not asking for damage, just a general growing sense of chaos. Like containers of water. Or drop those rubber bouncing balls that Ahkmed’s has a thousand of in his desk.”

“I’m not even going to ask how you know what’s in Athil Ahkmed’s desk.”

“Are you vetoing my suggestion?”

“Yes. The point of these places is that no one knows I’m there. If I make a habit of dropping things on people, they’ll start habitually looking up.”

He pushed through a set of double doors, and she blinked in the sudden flash of the retinal scanner. The room behind was dark, lights turned off at the close of day. He didn’t turn them on, knowing the room. Still holding onto his hand, she let him lead her, both of them surefooted. He’d insisted that they leave their shoes behind in his room, so keeping silent was easy.

Suddenly, she sensed the cool of the painted wall in front of her face and stopped walking at the same moment she did.

“Here,” he said. He pulled her hand up to touch the wall. She could feel the smooth surface of the paint, and then her fingers caught on a wooden slat.

“What is it?”

“They used them to mount the cooling fans a couple decades ago. Now they’re just wall décor that no one wants to invest the money to take down. For me, and you now, they’re a good enough ladder.”

It was a strange climb. She could hear him moving above her, and she tried to copy his motions, but he’d done this often enough to anticipate the steps. She had to feel her way along. It made her slower than he was, which was new and frustrating.

Suddenly, her next reach came up into empty air, and she realized it was the top. His voice, when he spoke, was right next to her ear. “Ventilation shaft. We have to follow it along for a bit, but then it gets too small. So watch your head.”

They did as he’d said, crawling along the dusty metal floor. Every now and then, wires, or cobwebs, or whatever undecipherable things hung in the dark, touched her face. Once she felt her hair brush the top the space, and she ducked lower.

“Down here,” he finally whispered, guiding her down. “It’s a little over a six foot fall, but it’s just flat floor beneath.” Her legs dangled into empty dark space, and the air felt cool as it nipped at her from the unknown.

She dropped, falling just as far as he’d said. Once she’d gotten to her feet, she stepped to the side so he could join her. He landed gracefully enough, but she felt a small pride that her landing had been silent, even though he was more familiar with the pathway. At least she would still be of some use, once her confinement to this building ended.

“Know where we are?”

“Approximately 16 meters south by southwest of the main power grid. Less than a meter above the fourth level, and still just under twenty meters below the surface.”

“Probably true, but not what I’m talking about. We’re in the old emergency escape tunnels. They run above the actual base, but most of them were repurposed when they expanded the structure upward. Which means this tunnel opens right into the top of the centrum.”

“Where there are always people,” she finished for him.

“It’s the New York City of our little world.”

As he’d been speaking, he’d led her down the tunnel, into increasing brightness. She could see her own fingers and feet, and then she could see his face. It was eager and concentrated, happy to share something with her.

_Is there no one else for him to share it with?_

It was an intrusive thought. Of course he had friends. But Coulson was the only one really coming to mind, and that wasn’t much of a friendship, all things considered. However, regardless of its veracity, she pushed the thought from her mind. It wasn’t her place, and she shouldn’t let her thoughts slide down dangerous paths like that. In fact, she should probably confess it to him later.

But not just yet. The moment was too perfect.

They emerged from fading darkness into the shadow of an alcove in the ceiling. She could see down into the centrum, people milling around several stories below her. They were unidentifiable, without a scope. She couldn’t tell if it made them less or more human.

“That’s Dr. Allen,” he said suddenly. “She had some interesting things to say about you.”

“What kind of things.”

“Interesting things.” He twisted around from his crouch to look at her intently. “Things that you are _not_ to go hacking around in her files to find.”

“You already said that hacking was off limits.”

“Good for me. It stands repeating.”

She supposed she made enough mistakes that she didn’t deserve to be offended by the insinuation that she would forget a direct order. “How did you recognize her from up here?”

“Who? Dr. Allen? First I pick out her walk, then her hair color and style preference. Then I just focus on her until I’m sure. Like I said earlier, some things are easier to see if you’re not too close to them.”

She tried to see what he could see, but she couldn’t find it. She supposed not everything was teachable. Besides, he’d always been capable of so much that she couldn’t understand.

***

They bounced around Clint’s various sanctuaries until late into the night. Most of them were connected to the previous escape tunnels, but there were a few where he just folded himself into dark corners of the scaffolding.

He did leave some for himself, mostly the ones he found particularly clever, but he ended up showing her more than he’d intended. Clint kept telling himself that the whole adventure was a psychological healing process, but mostly he just loved her reactions every time he looked at her face.

She’d been so excited by the prospect of doing anything with him, much less anything so personal. So he’d kept going, bringing her to another and another, wondering if the look of childish glee would ever diminish. He gave up wondering eventually.

And, as he considered the word, childish was exactly the right description. One of the many research papers he’d been reading had explained that children forced to grow up too quickly often retain personality elements of children. As if they’re forever trying to complete the stage of life they were denied.

In some ways, it was exactly Natalia. A dangerously competent weapon, who just wanted to sit in a pool of praise and play her games.


	7. Chapter 7

A few days later, the two of them were sitting in their usual place in the cafeteria. Most people gave it a wide berth, though a few risked sitting on the far end when there wasn’t any other choice. Clint supposed there had been some sort of memo or briefing outlining recommended precautions regarding the resident Black Widow.

Either way, he both appreciated the distance and regretted the loss of camaraderie. It was ironic, really. He’d spent so long quietly resenting all the forced interaction and teamwork that came with SHIELD, and hadn’t realized how customary he’d begun to find human companionship.

“This,” he gestured to the mashed potatoes in a desperate attempt for normal conversation, “is not real food. I don’t know how long they can expect me to stay here and continue to consume cardboard. It’s like I’m a probational trainee again.”

“Its nutritional value isn’t the problem,” she said, surprising him. “It’s the consistency. Even the flavor itself isn’t so bad. It’s just both grainy and watery and potatoes aren’t meant to be either of those things.”

“So now you’re a food expert?”

“No one involved in this process here is a food expert, least of all any of the consumers. However, when you’ve eaten enough cuisine straight from its national source, you start to understand what’s it’s supposed to be. Enough undercover work, or even guard duty and surveillance, teach that. Northern Europe would invade if they could see what we’ve done. You want to know what potatoes are supposed to taste like? Get a Shepard’s Pie in a hole-in-the-wall pub in the most run down Irish village you can find.”

“I’ll put it on my list of things to do.”

Both of them were distracted from further conversation by an overhead page.

“Romanova and her handler, please report to acquisitions. Please report to acquisitions.”

The phrase was repeated several times. Clint was afraid that hearing her name that way would put her on edge, but she just looked annoyed. Like many other things, he guessed it was just him.

He stood, gathering his tray. “Guess we better head down then. You didn’t do anything did you? I have to ask, because I’d rather know if I’m about to get chewed out.”

“No!” she rushed. “No, I don’t know of anything I did. I would have told you. No matter what.”

“I believe that,” he said dryly. Her heartfelt confessions to thoughts of judgment and pity during their escapades in the ceiling had been unexpected and uncomfortable. He’d dismissed it by saying she could think whatever she wanted about him, as long as she behaved. Really, it was what had sparked his thoughts about his social interactions.

As they walked down the endless hallways to acquisitions, he watched her carefully. He was concerned by the fact that they’d specifically paged her rather than him. Whatever they wanted, it would probably be stressful. He wished they’d run this by him first. Especially given what the acquisitions department actually did.

They stepped into the standard front office, Natalia looking around with eyes that memorized everything, and were quickly greeted by a man in a suit with an over-the-top enthusiasm. His voice was painfully nasally and he never stood still. He shifted from foot to foot or wrung his hands or nodded his head. It was exhausting trying to watch him.

“Agent Barton, so good to meet you. I’ve heard nothing but good things. Nothing but good things.” Clint doubted that very much. “And this is your friend, I see. I assume you’re wondering why she’s been called here today. So sorry to spring this on you.”

“I am wondering why she’s been called here. More importantly, _she’s_ wondering why she’s been called here. You can address her. She’s human and everything.”

“Mm, some debate about that I hear. I was extensively warned not to aggravate her. She’s quite dangerous, you know.”

“I’m intimately aware.”

“Of course you are. Of course. Then you understand why I’d prefer to speak with you. Let me explain the situation. One of our teams picked up a woman jumping back and forth across the border between India and Pakistan. Just back and forth, back and forth, avoiding all legal methods of international travel and just flitting from one country to the other. When questioned about her actions, she became violent, and the team was forced to contain her.”

Clint doubted the heart of the story. Acquisitions’ _purpose_ was to pick people up. He doubted they’d been “forced” to do anything. Not to mention that anyone getting across the Indo-Pakistan border through non-conventional means had to be _connected._ It wasn’t like the countries were besties. Clint, therefore, assumed the identity of the woman was well known, and that she was either involved or otherwise associated with an interest of SHIELD.

“Her arrival here,” the man continued. “turned out to be most perplexing, and not a little frustrating. The language she’s speaking cannot be identified.”

“You could have started with that,” Clint snapped. “You don’t need to sugar-coat your stories to me. I’ve been on the teams that pick people up for you. Just tell me you need her to translate.”

“Oh, yes, forgive me for my tact. I’m just used to softening the reality of our situations. You never know who you’re talking to, or what words could get back to the wrong people.”

Clint wondered what information Natalia could dig up on this weasel of a man, should he ask her to pursue it. He hadn’t gotten a name yet, but he doubted that would slow her down very much.

“Just get her in the room.”

“Of course. Thank you for being so compliable. Would you kindly bring her this way?”

Clint followed, assuming Natalia would be on his heels, as they walked around the desk and back into the less sterilized rooms behind. The lights became dimmer as they continued, and he wasn’t sure if it was cliché or not. Either way, it was still foreboding. The lighting, combined with the damp gray walls, reminded him of his own times in foreign interrogation rooms. He shut the thoughts down by reaching back to take Natalia’s hand in his own. He rubbed his thumb up and down the lines of her finger bones, feeling the texture and patterns of her.

He realized he could make out shouting, and they came to a sudden stop in front of a door. It looked heavy, shadowed in the dark of the single-bulb lamps. He rubbed deeper into the dips between her bones, forcing himself into a still calm.

When the suit-man opened the door, the yelling became much louder. The sound, now undampened, echoed in the bare corridor. The woman making the noise was seated in a metal chair, yelling something Clint didn’t understand at the two guards at the door. She didn’t look particularly uncomfortable, which was a bit of a relief, and sat with crossed legs and crossed arms. She looked to be in her mid-50s and was heavyset, curves pushing out against the colorful fabric of her skirt and top. She looked almost motherly, except her face was contorted into a sneer derisive enough that Clint didn’t envy anyone who’d been on the other end of it in her life. But then, he supposed that was pretty motherly, too.

The man ushered Natalia into the room, and then held out his hand in front of Clint. “As you can hear,” his lips pursed in displeasure, “she’s not being very useful. She’s responded negatively to all attempts to communicate, including a number of regional languages and even a picture based language that is usually very effective.”

Clint looked at Natalia. “Do you understand it?”

“No, but she’s very loquacious. Give me a minute.”

“Ah, how disappointing,” the man sighed. “We’d heard that the Black Widows are very eclectically trained in languages. Well, it was worth a try. We’ll have to get a linguist on it.”

Natalia turned on her heel to face him, all danger. Clint almost reached to put a restraining hand on her arm, but he decided to let the situation play out.

“Mr. Clemonte,” she seethed. “The sooner you shut up, the sooner I will have it. I’m sorry that you feel so unjustly sidelined that you must open your mouth into every silence, but I don’t have time to deal with your inadequacies. If you want me to translate for this woman, quiet the vast expanse between your lips for more than the time it takes to draw breath.”

She turned sharply back to the woman, studying her closely. Clemonte--Clint was afraid to ask how she’d known the name--turned to look at Clint, mouth gasping open and closed like a fish, but Clint just shrugged. Happily, he had the sense to shut his mouth after that.

Natalia continued watching the woman, eyes absorbing the body langue while her ears untangled the words. The one-sided conversation stretched on. Then Natalia spoke, a few tripping syllables that hung in the woman’s sudden stunned silence. The quiet was short lived, because the woman eagerly began again, this time with renewed intensity.

So it continued. Back and forth. Natalia spoke a few words here and there, and then they were whole sentences. At one point, she appeared to make the woman very angry, but a soothing tone of voice, combined with a gentle smile, seemed to do the job. Before long, they were conversing, a shared tongue between them.

When the natural conversation came to a close, Natalia turned back around to speak to Clemonte again. “Her name is Ximena, and she’s from one of the isolated mountain villages between the two countries in question. She’s confused as to why she is here.”

“Ask her why she was wandering back and forth across the border.”

Natalia translated and the woman, Ximena, waved her hands in the air in frustration, accompanying the gesture with a string of words. She barely breathed in until she’d finished.

“She says the borders are no matter to those who live in the mountain where it can be unclear where the borders even are. She’s upset that you would assume it was illicit activity.”

“Tell her that’s bullshit and we know it. Demand a reason why she and--” he stopped suddenly, listening to what Clint assumed was the radio in his ear. “Hold that thought.”

He disappeared out the door, closing it behind him. Clint could hear muffled conversation from the other side, but couldn’t discern any of the words. There was some silence, and then the door reopened.

“I’m afraid I have to change my request of your girl, Agent Barton.” Clint clenched his teeth against the use of the possessive, but held his tongue. “I’m going to have to have her speak with our linguist and help him through the language. I’m sure she’ll find him capable. Though his skills don’t match her own impressive display today, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours for her to work through it with him.”

It took more than a couple of hours. Natalia, it turned out, was neither a patient nor a forgiving instructor. Given her own experience as a student, Clint was hardly surprised. However, eventually the two of them found themselves outside of the uninviting hallways.

“Apparently your security clearance doesn’t cover whatever they wanted to ask her,” Clint laughed, trying to cover his own discomfort.

“The whole things was a little strange.”

“She was certainly a strange woman. Didn’t seem very uncomfortable with being locked in a SHIELD containment room half a world away from her home. I’m really starting to wonder what we’re not being told.”

“Me, too. Because what I meant when I said ‘strange’ was that the language was strange.”

“ Really? And that was impressive, by the way, the way you picked that language up out of the air. I didn’t know you could do that.” She looked down at the floor while her lips turned up into a shy smile. “So, what was strange about the language?”

“I would expect a language formed in the mountains between Pakistan and India to be based on Hindi, or other regional and ethnic dialects.”

“And it wasn’t?”

“Not at all. It was closer to a combination of French and Spanish. Like Portuguese, but more forced.”

“And that means?”

“I’m sure that Clemonte and his linguist know what it means. Do you want me to find out?”

“No. Leave the poor man alone. You and I have enough to worry about without dealing with his problems, too.”

***

It was a pretty weird interaction, all things considered, but it wasn’t the strangest he saw Natalia have. Kelly Levine took that prize, and even Ximena didn’t offer much competition in Clint’s mind.

It started because Dr. Levine’s wife had thrown him out of the house. Which was kind of shitty, since she’d been the one having an affair. What was worse was that she threw her daughter, Kelly, out of the house at the same time. Reportedly, her exact words had been, “Take the little trouble-maker with you. Maybe she’ll lose ten pounds and learn that beautiful is more efficient than smart.” Kelly was nine.

It was an overall awful morning for both Dr. Levine and his daughter, but it didn’t really justify his subsequent decision to bring the girl with him to work. Alarms went off, people ran down the halls the guns, everyone suffered through a brief lockdown. In short, Dr. Levine’s day got worse. His daughter’s, however, was proving to be excitingly interesting.

Once no one was threatening to shoot anyone else, Dr. Levine was hauled away to a room similar to Ximena’s where he was questioned for several hours regarding his intentions. He repeatedly insisted that he had been so distraught over the whole situation that he had forgot she was in the back seat. His interrogators needed some convincing.

Kelly was taken down to the cafeteria by an armed escort team to wait for the child psychology experts to arrive. When there, she quickly grew bored, and began experimenting with her boundaries. She was delighted to discover that if she demanded any type of food at the top of her lungs, someone would get it for her. It was unclear whether this happened because everyone was excited to see such a precocious little girl in the cafeteria, or because no one knew what else to do when she demanded things at a high volume.

Once she’d accumulated a sizable pile of empty pudding cups, she decided to hide under the table. This caused a mild reaction, but everyone calmed down pretty quickly when she just sat there. This was a major disappointment to Kelly, so she decided to begin crawling around under the aisles of tables. This caused a much larger reaction, but Kelly wasn’t around to see it.

This was because, while carefully picking her way around the legs and feet of people sitting down, she came quite close to Natalia, who, sensing her presence, promptly kicked Kelly in the side. Fortunately, she remembered her order not to hurt anyone in time to lessen the impact of the kick. She’d barely ended up touching the girl.

Ducking down, Natalia found Kelly holding both hands over her mouth and trying to decide whether or not she was going to cry. Eager to make it up to her, Natalia decided to duck down under the table, too. She and the girl contemplated each other, face to face and both sitting crisscross-applesauce under the shadow of the table.

“I’m Kelly.”

“Pleasure to meet you.”

“Now you’re supposed to tell me your name. That’s how this works.”

“I don’t usually give out my name. You should be more careful with your own. How did you get in here?”

“My daddy brought me in. I don’t think he was supposed to, but my mommy says he isn’t very good with decisions.”

They sat in silence for a while, until Kelly asked. “So what is there to do around here?”

“There’s a shooting range.”

“Now _that_ sounds like fun.

And the shooting range was where security found them twenty minutes later. Kelly had a Makarov pistol in both hands, and Natalia was giving her pointers. The whole situation was so ridiculous that nobody knew the protocol. In the end, the security team assigned to Kelly just let her stay as she was, while they watched her. Kelly ended up working her way through a variety of the handgun selection, while Natalia hung lazily over the edge of the wooden counter, watching.

When the child psychologist finally did arrive, authorities got involved, and there was a lot of yelling. Through the whole event, Kelly stood behind Natalia’s leg, fingers tightly gripping the gray sweatpants. Natalia made calm eye contact with everyone who came anywhere near the two of them. It was enough that everyone was staying several steps back.

That was how Clint was finally introduced to the situation. He’d been talking over the latest developments with Dr. Allen when he’d gotten the page. Looking the situation over, he figured he might as well head right back up there to discuss this one.

“Natalia,” he called, instantly claiming her attention. Though, he noted, not all of her attention. She kept one hand wrapped around behind her to cover Kelly.

“They can’t have her,” Natalia told him.

“Somebody get the kid’s parent here _now_ ,” Clint ordered. The group complied, hearing the alarm in his voice.

He walked carefully to the two of them and stood close enough that their audience couldn’t hear them. “They’re not going to take her,” he murmured. “She’s lost, and they’re going to give her back.”

“I was lost.”

“I know. I know, clever girl. I know. But no one found you. I’m so sorry, that no one found you. I wish there had been someone out there to find you before you got hurt. I wish that someone like you had protected you like this.”

“No one found me,” she echoed. Then she shook her head. “No. _They_ found me. They found me in the smoke and the snow. They turned my world red. They always find me.”

“Wrong. They’ll never find you again. You’re mine now. Just mine. I promise you that, just like I promise they’ll never find her. She’s not lost, Natalia. You found her first.”

He wrapped his arms around her, unsurprised to find her trembling beneath him. He held her gently, waiting for Dr. Levine to arrive.

When he did, it didn’t turn out to be too difficult to make Natalia let the girl go. Clint just had to order it, and that was the end of it. Except, Clint spent a lot of hours afterward wishing he’d had time to convince Natalia to let go without the order. He was sure she’d been so close.

***

It was hardly the most damaging flashback Natalia had. That one came a few weeks later. Clint was rambling to himself, just soothing Natalia with the sound of his voice. He was talking about Alice Carver, who had gone into labor that morning while still on base. Which was funny, because Alice had spent the last few weeks freaking out about being a bad mother, while all her co-workers had spent the last few weeks reassuring Alice that she’d be great. Once labor actually hit, the roles reversed, and everyone except Alice flew into a panic.

Fortunately, the birth had been a resounding success, leaving Alice the smug mother of a beautiful boy. Both herself, and her husband, were looking forward to her upcoming time off. Clint doubted she’d be as thrilled once the baby stopping sleeping and started crying. But then, he wasn’t really an expert on anything regarding children.

Near the end of his musings, Natalia gave a sudden sharp gasp. He sighed to himself, thinking he’d accidentally said her name somewhere. Except he hadn’t really been talking to her. Or about her.

He turned, and found that Natalia had pressed herself back against the far wall. Her eyes were darting around as if she’d seen something Clint hadn’t.

“Hey,” he called softly. “Are you here with me, clever girl?”

She didn’t answer, though her body flinched away at the sound of Clint’s voice.

Acting on some instinct, Clint kept his distance, continuing his attempts to sooth her. He tried to replay the last few minutes of his monologue, but couldn’t think of anything in particular that would have set her off. It had all been pretty inane.

“Natalia,” he tried, growing desperate. “What happened? What did I say?”

Obviously he’d found some trigger word or phrase. Something either conditioned into her purposefully or accidentally. He longed to be able to see inside her head and find the memory she was reliving.

However, he knew he couldn’t. More than that, he knew he was out of his league. He made a few steps toward his intercom, considering if he should page Dr. Allen, or if he should just go ahead and call security. Honestly, Natalia’s wild eyes were making him lean toward the latter.

“Get away!” she screamed suddenly, apparently startled by his sudden movement. “Don’t you dare touch me.”

“I’m not going to touch you.”

“Don’t touch me!”

“Natalia. I’m not going to touch you. I’m way over here. You’re over there. Look at where you are.”

“It’s not your call. I can take care of it. I can figure this out on my own. You don’t have to do this.”

“I don’t understand you. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what this is about! Why would you do this to me like this? What am I awake to know? Are you punishing me for getting like this? I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Natalia, can you tell me where you are? Do you know where you are?”

“It’s your fault.” She moved then, but not into an aggressive attack, as Clint had been expecting. Instead, she curled into herself. She scrunched down into a tiny ball, arms wrapped around her body. “It’s your fault.”

A pregnant silence followed. Even the air seemed heavy. Clint was afraid to move, unsure whether it was safe to go comfort her, or if he should call for help. Then Natalia took a shuddering breath, face buried in her arms, and Clint realized she was crying.

That decided him. He purposefully crossed the room and kneeling beside her. “Are you back here with me?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Where did you go?”

“Back to a memory. One I didn’t like. One that didn’t teach me anything. It wasn’t about being strong, or smart, or perfect. It was just to hurt.”

“It’s different now.”

He slid to sit on the floor, back against the wall, arranging himself parallel to her. As soon as he was settled she twisted around to slide into his lap, facing him. She wasn’t shaking anymore, and she seemed to have stopped crying, but she quickly buried her face in his neck. Her whole body wilted into him; weary with a thousand unfinished battles.

“Different isn’t always good.” Her voice was slightly muffled, but still clear.

“I guess not. But when you’re life is truly the worst it’ll be, when it’s so bad you know you couldn’t survive worse, change is always good. There’s a point in everyone’s life when they’re literally the most miserable they’ll ever get. And then it’s past, and they’ll never be that miserable again. I need you to trust me when I say that your life is never going to be like that again.”

She looked up then, staring directly at Clint. “You’re not him, are you?” It wasn’t so much a question as a wistful statement.

“What?”

“You’re not my same handler. Something happened, and you’re someone new, aren’t you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story time!  
> For those skeptical about Natalia’s ability to absorb a new language, you should know that I’ve actually seen this happen. I have a friend who can do this, and he described it as knowing so many languages that he just 'feels out' the new one


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beautiful and amazing [nathanielbarton](http://nathanielbarton.tumblr.com/) has made a gifset from a scene [here](http://bucky-thevampireslayer.tumblr.com/post/112958355660/her-face-lit-up-id-love-to-then-her-smile), for which stand in awe.

Clint didn’t move. She was wrapped all around him, and he didn’t have a good pivot point to use to escape her grasp. He cursed himself silently. Even after all his training, he’d believed her to be harmless to him just because she’d gone to her knees a few times.

She laughed breathily in his ear. “Are you afraid of me?”

“I’m not thrilled by the current topic.”

“Oh.” Her brow wrinkled and she cocked her head slightly to one side. “Why? You think I’ll be upset because you’re not him?”

“The possibility crossed my mind.”

“Don’t be. I can’t remember much about what happened, though I think I’ve figured out _when_ it happened. Every time I try to replay the event, I come upon this lost section of time. I can’t remember the moment.”

“Don’t. I think we’d both rather you didn’t.”

“I don’t try very hard.” She slid her body further down his legs so she’d have room to tuck her head under his chin. He wrapped his arms around her on instinct. He wasn’t sure whether it was protective or defensive, but he held tight.

“Was it you?” she asked.

“Was it I what?” He held more tightly.

“I assume you’re the one who killed him. It makes sense, when you consider basic psychology. You had to have been nearby, and you have to have had some position of authority. So it was probably you.”

Clint didn’t respond.

“I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m yours now, either way.”

He drew his face away from hers, narrowly avoiding smacking it on the wall behind him. “Just like that?”

“Apparently. I’m sorry for losing my composure. I’d say it won’t happen again, but they show up sometimes.”

“You’ve had a flashback like that before?”

“Yes. He’d normally try and figure out what it was and then make me work through it.”

“I didn’t think trigger phrases were things you could just work through.”

“Well, I’m obviously not talking about the ones he’d purposefully instilled me with. I’m talking about the ones that got created on accident. He’d always work through them with me. Which was unpleasant. But it did mean I got a lot of one-on-one attention. So there was that.” She smiled suddenly. “ _You_ give me one-on-one attention all the time.”

“And that’s good?”

She shrugged. “I like attention.”

Clint laughed quietly, but continued watching her. It wasn’t like she was taking the “new” information with any aggression. But then, he knew from experience that she didn’t always communicate the emotion she was currently subjecting herself to. He really should go down and talk this through with Dr. Allen. Immediately. In fact, maybe it was time the two of them were introduced.

“Reborn,” she murmured, bringing Clint out of his musings.

“What?”

“Nothing important,” she laughed. “Just thinking that it’s like I’ve been reborn in you. Remade in a new image.”

“You’re making me feel fantastically creepy. Let me up.”

She shifted around compliantly, so Clint could get to his feet. He stood looking down at her folded up on the floor, one hand resting on her ankle and the other bracing herself against the floor. “Remade, huh?” he echoed. “How about renamed? I can’t keep calling you by nick names, and your own still seems to bother you. Let’s get you a new one.”

“You’ll give me a new name?”

“I can’t say that I think that’ll work out quite the way we’d hope. How about you pick it, instead.”

“Natasha.”

“Why ‘Natasha?” She’d said it too quickly for the name to be new to her, and it rang too closely to her actual name. He wasn’t interested in giving her another hand-me-down identity from his sicko predecessor.

“It was the name of my dancer identity. It was the only identity I still pretend to be sometimes. I liked the girl they made me for that job.”

“You’ll have to tell me about that one.”

Her face lit up. “I’d love to.” Then her smile turned down as quickly as it had appeared. “Except not the ending. I don’t want to talk about the ending. They took that beautiful clean girl and stained her red. I always end up staining my girls red.”

“Not this girl. We’re going to keep her uncontaminated.”

She smiled sadly. “There’s always a price to pay for keeping something unsoiled.”

 _Then I’ll pay it_ , Clint thought fiercely. It did not occur to him to be concerned by how deeply that thought resonated within his convictions.

***

“You’re saying that she is completely aware of the series of events leading to her semi-incarceration within this facility?”

Clint nodded wearily at Dr. Allen. As soon as he’d convinced himself that Natalia— _Natasha_ —wasn’t going to degenerate, he’d made his way up to Dr. Allen’s office. He still hadn’t gotten to the point that he actually scheduled appointments ahead of time, but he’d stopped being so panicked and demanding.

“You’re sure that she wasn’t renaming you as a “new” handler in the same way that she was renaming herself a “new” girl? Her hold on reality seems to be fluid enough to accommodate that leap of intuition without conscious follow-through. Did she give any indication that she was speaking metaphorically?”

“Ma’am, I was lucky I learned to read, given my childhood. I couldn’t necessarily define a metaphor, much less recognize one.”

“I doubt that. You catch on very quickly. So much so that you enjoy reinforcing the illusion of your ignorance in order to give yourself an advantage. While I would love to explore what that says about your “team-player” mentality, or even your leadership potential, I’ll leave it to whoever it is that updates your psychological file. Suffice to say, that game is a waste of time in this office.”

“Can we focus _just_ on Natal—Natasha—Nat? Whatever the fuck she is now.”

“Unfortunately, that’s mildly impossible, given the nature of her attachment. Regardless, if you didn’t get the impression that she was being metaphorical, then we need to change the focus of her treatment.”

“Stop saying ‘treatment’. I honestly feel that I do more harm than good.”

“Rather than focusing on letting her get acclimatized to the location, in an attempt to make her less dangerous, I think you should instead focus on socializing her.”

“Do you ever listen to the words that come out of my mouth?”

“When it suits me. The reason for this change is that I had assumed she was clinging to you solely out of conditioning. If she is indeed aware that you’re not her original handler, then there’s also a significant element of choice at play here. I want her exposed to new people. If she can recognize there’s a soul in you, then she is capable of recognizing souls in others. It’s the first step in recognize that she, too, has a soul.”

“You want me to throw her in the deep end.”

“I’m sure she’s already acclimatized to the sensation of drowning.”

“That doesn’t mean-”

“Barton, I enjoy our sessions, I really do. But I have work to do. The kind of work that I actually get paid for.”

Clint threw his hands in the air and turned to exit the room.

***

Despite his growing sense of unease, Clint decided to take Dr. Allen’s advice. He would have loved to discuss his concerns with Coulson, but he’d recently left on an extended undercover assignment into Central America. Besides, Clint admitted to himself, he probably wouldn’t have had the courage to bother the Senior Agent even if he’d been in the country.

Figuring that Nat was most content when she was putting herself through her paces, Clint elected to bring her into the gym again. Not that he was going to let her out of his sights. Maybe she’d actually manage not to kill anyone.

“Say it back to me,” he repeated, still secretly surprised when she didn’t roll her eyes at him. He wouldn’t have blamed her. They’d been through it more than enough times.

“Don’t injure anyone in a way that they won’t recover from in a few hours. This includes death, maiming, or psychological trauma, including any form of mental torture, emotional torture, or blackmail.”

Clint nodded his way through her recitation, regardless of the fact that he felt sure that he’d left something out. Where was a lawyer when you actually needed one?

However, he pushed the door to the lower level gym open with one hand, his eyes trailing behind him to keep an eye on her. Like she’d do something at any moment. Every time he tried to convince himself that he was overreacting, that she hadn’t snapped yet, his thoughts flew back to the precarious moment with Kelly, and then to the still undefined moment with her flashback.

But then they were in the room. Despite a few glances their way, most of them from agents to whom it was a reflex, their entry was a complete non-event.

Which was when it occurred to Clint that he might have been worrying over the wrong thing. Sure, Natasha had her problems when it came to social interactions, but so did he. How the fuck was he supposed to “socialize her” when he didn’t really know anyone in the room?

Natasha was picking up on his sudden self-reflection, shifting her weight from foot to foot as she considered possible targets. Great. Now his antisocial tendencies were putting people’s lives in danger.

“Don’t,” he whispered to her. “Let’s just warm up, ok?”

The time ticked by as the two of them pushed through warm up, and then made a slow rotation through the various types of equipment. As they went, Clint grew more and more tense, Natasha receptively echoing his behavior.

Finally, she asked, “is there something you want me to be doing?”

Well, there was an idea. Would that be a cop out? For him to force her to do the first introductions for him? Someone had said that a true leader would never order someone else to do something that they themselves wouldn’t do.

But then, Clint would like to introduce whoever said that to this particular situation, and see just how comfortable everyone stayed.

“Yeah,” he answered. “Yeah, I want you to pick someone in the room and make friends.” After a moment’s thought he added, “Not sexually. Just, get to know someone. Make them feel at ease. Make friends.”

Natasha nodded once and then slipped purposefully away. Clint watched her go, feeling less and less guilty as she moved. He watched as she strayed casually to one of the treadmills where some guy Clint had never spoken to was doing his cool down.

As Natasha began to talk, the man gave her first his attention, and then a grin. As she continued talking, leaning carefully on the treadmill, he reached out and slowed his pace, until eventually he came to a stop.

Clint rolled his eyes. The conditioned, mentally tortured, psycho-assassin had better people skills than he did. He tried to tell himself that it was because Nat had some things to work with that he certainly didn’t, but even as his eyes quickly glanced over her carefully positioned body he knew it wasn’t a completely true statement.

***

The shooting range ended up being less embarrassing. Agent Lutz was there, and he greeted Clint warmly enough. He kept his distance from Natasha, but Clint considered the lack of open hostility to be progress. Eventually, the two of them fell into a semi-comfortable on-and-off conversation, standing next to each other in their booths. Natasha hung around behind, seemingly still. But Clint knew enough about her already to know she was itching to get her hands on a weapon.

When he felt that he’d paid enough attention to his own skills, given the circumstances, he motioned her over. He saw Lutz next to him stiffen, keeping his eyes fixed carefully on his target.

Clint ignored the subtle discomfort and let Nat put herself through the different weapons. Eventually, the unease settled into a dulling rhythm.

“Why don’t you show off a little?” Clint asked suddenly from behind. Both Lutz and Natasha glanced back at him, unsure who the comment had been for, and he nodded at Natasha. She grinned, and switched out the pistol she’d been holding for one of the Russian handguns.

It was pretty much a repeat of the last time she’d been in there. An audience formed itself behind her, and even Lutz put down his own gun to watch her trick shots defy physics.

Sensing, as Clint had guessed she would, that she was still supposed to be making friends, Natasha struck up an easy banter/conversation with the group. She knew the name of every person there, which Clint decided not to be concerned by, and seemed to know exactly how to make each of them at ease.

By the time the two of them left the range for dinner, Clint was congratulating himself on the day’s marvelous success.

But there was plenty of time for the day to go back to its customary downhill nature. Which it quickly did. Clint found out later that his friend, Dr. Kay Holloway, had approached Natasha while she was sitting and waiting for him. She’d called her “Natalia” which had set off a bit of a cold shoulder from Natasha. Kay had apparently tried to fix the situation.

Clint never did learn exactly what was said, but he turned around when heard the commotion and saw Kay bent backwards over the table, while Nat held her down by the throat.

“Natalia!” he shouted harshly, the old name leaving his lips in a desperate effort to stop any escalation.

It had the desired effect, and Nat drew herself away sharply, turned her shoulder so that she protected her body from Clint, as if he were a foot away, rather than several yards.

All eyes in the room were on the unfolding events as Clint marched his way across the dining hall. Kay had sat up and was rubbing her neck, eyeing Natasha carefully. She seemed neither damaged nor shaken, though Clint knew from their careful friendship that she was good at hiding her emotions.

“You ok?”

She nodded, laughing breathily. “Yeah, I’m ok. Guess I should have taken those warnings about her more to heart.”

“No, it wasn’t you,” Clint said gently. “She should have known better.” He felt, more than saw, the reaction to that behind him, but he continued to keep his eyes on Kay. “So? What’s up? Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

The opening to a casual conversation led some of their audience to return to their own activities, although most everyone continued to keep a subconscious eyes on the group.

“Well, I didn’t want to disrupt your reconditioning thing you had going on.”

“Is that what they’re calling it?”

“That’s what they’re officially calling it. I figured, with you, it’s probably more of a deconditioning thing. But I’ve been keeping my opinions to myself on the matter. Either way, how’s it going?”

“Well, I clearly thought it was going better than it was.”

“Don’t be so hard on her. I’m pretty sure I was inadvertently offensive. Isn’t that a good thing? Self-preservation and all.”

“You are not a psychiatrist, Dr. Holloway. Please, for the love of everything, give me a break from the psycho-babble. It’s all my life is made of these days. I need some normal interactions.”

“Aw, I missed you, too. Actually, I just got back from Guatemala yesterday. Weird stuff going on in the slaving market.”

“There, too? We’ve been having some interesting effects of that trickle up into the U.S. lately. Anything in particular that you can talk about?”

“Why don’t you and…Natasha? Is that right? Why don’t you and Natasha sit down, and I’ll sort through to the unclassified info. It’s really quite a story.”

Clint almost did just that, but Dr. Allen’s repeated warnings hung in his mind. He’d set down a rule. He’d made it clear. And Nat had fallen short of the criteria.

“No,” he sighed. “I think it’s best that Natasha not join us right now. She and I should discuss some things before that can happen. So, Natasha, why don’t you head back to the room and wait for me.” He didn’t turn back to look, and didn’t hear her move. However, Kay’s eyes were clearly trailing to the side as she watched the girl retreat.

“I’ve gotten her in trouble,” Kay sighed, her mouth turning down in self-deprecation.

“She does it to herself often enough that it’s a refreshing change. Seriously though, if she had to fuck up today, I’m glad it was with you.”

“Thanks a lot!”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do. Now go get something to eat, so I can sit your ass down and tell you about latest atrocities being committed against the Guatemalan indigenous peoples and the less than legal sanctions we brought to their aid.”

Clint grinned in anticipation of the story and turned to make his way back across the hall.

***

When Clint entered their room later that day, he wasn’t completely surprised to see Natasha sitting calmly on the bed. Sure, he’d expected a bit more panicking, but he accepted it’s absence in stride. Clearly, Dr. Allen knew what she was talking about.

Clint let the door click shut behind him, and then made his way across to sit down next to her.

“So,” he started, letting the sentence hang in the air. He could see the unfinished thought weighing down on her. He sighed heavily. “What do you think?”

She slid off the bed onto her knees, one hand on Clint’s leg and the other bracing itself on the floor, fingers splayed out.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know she was your friend.”

“Guess I don’t have a lot of those, huh?” She didn’t respond to that. “Honestly, though, I’m not so much pissed at the fact that you attacked a friend of mine than I’m pissed because you attacked anyone at all. I know you kind of kept to the letter of the law and all, not permanently damaging her, but we’ve talked about this time and time again. You know better.”

Natasha bowed her head down in acceptance of the admonition. “Please punish me,” she said, clear and perfectly enunciated.

“Yeah, well, there we are, aren’t we.” The two of them sat in silence for a moment. “How about this. You failed to follow simple instructions today. You reacted childishly to a misunderstanding, and I know it was a misunderstanding because Kay is the least harmful person I know. Really, you threw a fit like a child. So go stand with your face to the wall. I don’t want to see or hear you move. I don’t want to be distracted by you in the slightest.”

She slipped away to obey, already silent, and positioned herself face-first in the corner. She had clasped her hands tightly behind her back, and Clint suspected she’d regret the decision not to let them hang by her side soon enough. But if that was the way she wanted to play it, he’d let her. He settled himself at the desk to dig back into the theses laid out on his desk. He could just see her out of the corner of his eye.

***

Three minutes and forty-five seconds.

Natasha tried to force herself not to keep track of the time. It wasn’t like it would make anything faster or less constrained. It wouldn’t make her better. Counting away the immeasurable time was unprofitable. It was pointless. It was a waste of mental resources.

Four minutes.

She started running doubles in her head, exponentially reiterating the numbers to herself until the string of decimal places ran longer than the list of her codenames. She had to bite her lip at one point to keep herself from mouthing the current number out loud.

Except, a string of the digits happened to line up perfectly with the current number of seconds and suddenly she was back where she’d started.

Eight minutes.

Ok, so numbers weren’t the way to go. She picked out a Russian colloquium and started translating it into different languages, struggling to find corresponding colloquiums in each dialect.

Not consuming enough.

Eleven minutes.

It was some point past the first half-hour that she began to purposefully sink herself into her darker memories in order to whitewash the rotating secondhand mentally-imprinted before her eyes.

***

Over an hour later, when Clint had almost made himself sick with all the motionless reading, he leaned back in his chair and contemplated her, trying to figure out if he should leave her there or let her go. On one hand, he’d stayed still longer than that more than once in order to catch a target. On the other hand, he was about to turn in for the night, and the psychological ramifications of being left there in the dark could be a high price.

Then again, maybe that was what it would take to make her think twice, How many years of conditioning was he trying to undo? Was a few hours of corner time really going to cut it? It wasn’t like staring at a wall was all that difficult.

In the end, he decided to compromise, setting his alarm for a few hours into the night.

When he clicked off his bedside lamp, leaving the room in darkness, he thought he heard a sharp gasp. But when he held still, listening purposefully, he came to the conclusion that he’d imagined the sound.

Either way, when the alarm went off several hours later, he’d only slept fitfully, if at all.

“Natasha,” he called softly. He could see the motionless form across the room from him, and knew she could hear him perfectly well. He took the silence as her following orders, and tried again. “Natasha, come over to me.”

She broke position at that, and Clint could tell she was almost unsteady on her feet. At the least, she wasn’t her usual lithe self as the crossed the room.

She stopped at his bedside, and he had to reach out to pull her down. Eventually she realized what he was trying to do and climbed into the bed with him.

“You ok?” he murmured in the dark. He massaged the shoulder nearest him gently, and could feel the catch in her breathing. “Maybe we’ll let our arms hang loosely by our sides next time, hm?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right then. It’s over, in case you didn’t understand that. You’re forgiven.”

She didn’t respond and, as the two of them stilled in the bed, Clint noticed just how hard she was shaking.

“You ok?” he asked again.

“Yes, sir.”

They were the last words he managed to get out of her that night. Clint, unfamiliar with the alarms going off in front of him, failed to recognize the danger.

***

It wasn’t like every day degenerated into chaos and self-induced flashbacks. In fact, their lives finally fell into a routine. The routine itself was more helpful than he’d anticipated, and Natasha came to initiate daily activities, rather than waiting for Clint to push her into them.

She’d even made a friend. Or, at least, Clint was pretty sure she’d made a friend. Rick Stalton, which was apparently the name of the man Natasha had practically seduced on the treadmill, ended up joining them some days. He either caught them at the shooting range, or joined them in the gym. A couple of times, he showed up in the cafeteria.

So did Dr. Holloway. The first time she’d joined them had put everyone on edge. Which Clint secretly suspected was her intention, since the chaos-loving lunatic never did know how to keep herself out of danger.

“I have decided,” she announced, sweeping in to seat herself next to Clint.

“Decided what?” Clint asked carefully.

“Nothing in particular,” Kay answered. “I just thought that it would be a great phrase to make into a dramatic entrance. Now, random question. Natasha, have you ever spent a significant amount of time around the Guatemalan-Mexican border?”

Natasha glanced up quickly at Clint, but then said, “Not the border, no. But I don’t see the relevance.”

“I was just curious. What about the India-Pakistan border?”

“I spent four months in northern India, but I didn’t cross the border.” She cocked her head to the side. “I did, however, recently speak with a woman here who was picked up for migrating back and forth between the two countries.”

Clint choked on his drink before managing to spit out, “Classified!”

“Clint, darling,” Kay sighed, “shut up. What woman? A woman here? As in an employee?”

Natasha shook her head. “No, it was someone that acquisitions had picked up.”

“What?” Kay asked sharply, her eyes narrowing.

“For the love of everything you’re going to get us stuck with a desk job in the darkest hellhole this place can cook up.” Clint stood, motioning with his head for Natasha to do the same. “Kay, do _not_ get her involved in your conspiracy theories.”

“This is not a conspiracy theory!” Kay scoffed. “This is an actual mission to which I am _assigned_ and your asset just told me that they’re _keeping information from me_!”

“That is so much fucking worse,” Clint called back over his shoulder as he firmly steered Natasha toward the exit.

***

One night, just past ten, Clint was throwing little balled up pieces of paper to see if he could actually get one to hit Natasha. Mostly he was just ecstatic that she’d caught onto the game immediately. Even though it meant her ridiculous reflexes had her winning at something around 113-0.

Honestly, the whole thing had gotten pretty ridiculous. It’d started with the scrap paper he’d been taking notes on from his reading, and then devolved to the point that he started tearing up the thesis pages as he finished them. By the end, he wasn’t even really reading anymore, in too much of a rush to get more ammo.

“Do you think it’s possible to erase a memory?” Natasha asked suddenly.

“What? You mean, like hypnosis or conditioning or something? Haven’t you been through enough of that fucked up shit?”

“I guess. That’s not really what I meant, though. I meant, a memory in general. Something so bad that the earth and the air remember it. It’s imprinted out there something, being held against me. Like some sort of debt that I’ll never be able to wipe out.”

Clint sighed heavily, getting to his feet and crossing the room to sit down next to her. Her gaze was fixated on the ceiling, and it didn’t look like she was gonna move it soon.

“Anything you want to talk about?”

She shivered once and Clint took it for as close to a no as he’d get from her. Rather than pressing the issue, he wrapped one arm around her and pulled her in close.

“I really am sorry,” she breathed.

“Don’t. Once you start down that road it’s a lot of blood and pain to get dragged back from it.”

“No, I know. I meant, that _I’m_ sorry. Not because of changing affiliations. And not just because of the nightmares. And not just because of trauma-driven dissociation fantasy. I wish I hadn’t because _I_ wish I hadn’t.” She paused. “Am I making sense?”

“Yeah. I got you.” He kissed her forehead gently. “I got you.”

_Shit. I am in way too deep._

***

It wasn’t the first time that Clint had that realization over the next several weeks. However, rather than a starting point for alarm, it became a sort of chant to himself. As if, when he said it, it somehow negated the effects. As if, as long as he knew he was getting in too deep, there wouldn’t be any consequences.

The nail in Clint’s coffin turned out to be the ethereal sensation that comes right before the sunrise. Natasha had started waking up to nightmares, usually somewhere between three and four in the morning, and that was giving them way too much personal time.

It had been good, at first. Dr. Allen had likened it to cutting open an abscess. A single incision that was Natasha’s transition into a new world; so they were just going to have to deal with the shit that came spilling out.

The problem was that now Clint had this regularly presented opportunity to hold her quietly in the dark, trembling and clinging to him the way you wake up clinging to the edge of the bed when you’ve had a nightmare about drowning.

He was addicted and he knew it. And the thing about addiction is that it tends to pull you in deeper. Addiction is not satiated.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *GASP* Is that some plot?!  
> Also, warning for some sexual power-play as part of an interrogation technique (not between Nat and Clint).

“Do you think you can control her?”

“You say, like she’s not a person.” He almost bit the words back, but his ongoing snide comments about SHIELD’s treatment of Natasha had reached celebrity status. He might as well keep it up.

“You know what I mean, Barton.”

Clint sighed at the man in the suit whose name he had not, and would not, be given. Which made it a good bet that this was one of those assignments that wouldn’t end up anywhere except the most secure filing systems. He glanced over to where Natasha was leaning calmly against the wall.

“I’ve got a handle on the situation, yes.”

“Do you accept the risks inherent to this mission, given the identity of your partner and the subsequent probability of internal threat?”

“Meaning, am I willing to risk that she’ll go crazy in the field and turn on me? Yes, yes, yes, can we get this stuff over with? I know the risks. She knows the risks. Everybody knows the risks. Either you think it’s time to put her in the field, or you don’t.”

“Watch your tongue, Agent.”

“Yes, sir.”

After a moment’s pause, with everyone warily eyeing everyone else, the unnamed man handed over the file folder. “Don’t take any of it out with you,” he warned, as a farewell, and then left the two of them alone in the room together.

“I’m proud of you,” Clint intoned, keeping his eyes on the folder as he opened it. “For keeping your temper when he reprimanded me. I didn’t even see you flinch.”

“Doesn’t mean I liked it.”

Clint glanced up at her with a smile. “I’d never presume to tell you what you are and are not allowed to dislike, ma’am. Now come over and take a look at these.”

She joined him standing at the table, resting her chin on his right shoulder to look over it at the papers. “India?” she asked.

Clint frowned. “Really not liking the theme that’s developing here.”

“You’re not a fan of India?”

“Who doesn’t love being surrounded by a million freaking people when you’re trained to watch every one of them. I have similar feelings of distaste for Times Square and most of Japan. Not to mention various other locations. Plus, it’s November, so we’re going to be stuck in some no-heat backwater hovel, because SHIELD’s budget-makers are on crack, while we’re sitting around in the low 30s. If we’re lucky. We’re gonna freeze our asses off.”

“What’s really bothering you?”

“Meaning?”

“I’m sure you’ve had more inconvenient missions. Plus it looks like we’ll be in Dabra, which, if I’m not mistaken, is just a little north of Shivpuri. It’s hardly a cosmopolitan epicenter. As for the weather, we’ll dress warm. So what’s the big deal?”

“I don’t like the fact that we seem to be getting involved with whatever Pakistan-India-Guatemala-United States thing that SHIELD has its fingers all in. Though what the connection between those countries could possibly be is way the fuck over my head.”

“Slave labor, maybe? India and Pakistan both have incredibly active slave trade associations. And the U.S. has more human trafficking than people would like to think.”

“And Guatemala? They’re not really on the trafficking radar. Not large scale.”

Natasha shrugged. “No, but further exploitation of the indigenous population wouldn’t really be news.” She pulled away from her perch at his shoulder to flip through the pages herself. “Either way, there’s no guarantee that this is involved with whatever Dr. Holloway and Ximena are part of. It’s, what? A fifteen hour drive from Shivpuri to the Indo-Pakistan border?”

“Why do you know that? Do you just have the layout of _Earth_ memorized?”

“I do what I can. But you’re also forgetting that I spent four months in the area.” She held up a photo. “This is the target?”

“Looks like it.”

“Dead or alive?”

“Definitely alive. We’ve still got a “kill him if we have to” order, but it’s only if we lose him _after_ we’ve made contact.” He looked up at Natasha. “Don’t look so disappointed.”

She sighed. “There’s just something so final about a kill mission. If they’re dead, and you’re not, you did it right. No-kill missions have such potential to go horribly wrong. Plus, I feel itchy somewhere under my skin. I wouldn’t mind snapping a few necks.”

Clint stood up straight from the phone transcripts he’d been reading through. “What did you say?”

Natasha stilled as she evaluated his reaction. “I said that I wouldn’t mind snapping a few necks.” She paused and then continued in a rush, “I’m not saying it’s an uncontrollable need or anything. I just…” She gave up under Clint’s careful emotional mask.

“Natasha, I’m going to ask you a yes or no question, and it’s important that you answer honestly. No matter what you think I want to hear, what I really want is the truth.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you enjoy the isolated act of killing?”

Surprise registered on her face, and Clint knew the emotion must have been intense to show involuntarily like that.

“No,” was the quiet answer, followed by, “I enjoy winning. I enjoy it when you’re pleased with me. When he…it’s just all the same thing, in some ways.”

Clint bit the sides of his tongue, to keep his words from spilling out to hurt her. Eventually he settled for, “I’m going to need to start keeping a notebook, where I can track all the ways they managed to fuck you up. Not that I understand what anyone thinks _I’m_ going to do about it.”

***

“You going to tell me what you see?” Clint asked when she looked over her shoulder yet again.

“You’re the one with the eyes that can pick out targets before they’re even in range. You tell me.”

“While I’ll take the compliment, I was more concerned over whether or not you think the “back in black” duo behind us is either the most conspicuous tail ever, or if you think they’re just remarkably unlucky.”

Natasha snorted. “They’re looking to make a couple quick bucks by jumping the foreigners in a back alley. I wish they’d get their nerve up and actually try it. I’m pissed that they pegged us as foreigners.”

“Nat. Your hair is bright fucking red, and we look like marshmallows who lived underground for over six months.”

Natasha’s lips turned down. “Still. I’m offended that they think we’re easy targets, no matter our country of origin.”

“You’re actually upset about this, aren’t you?”

“I’m supposed to blend in. That’s my job. I must be more out of practice than I thought. I’m fucking up simple tasks I learned years ago. This is basic stuff, but I’m calling attention like there’s no tomorrow.”

“Will you calm down? I’m _thrilled_ they think we’re easy targets. That was the _goal_ , remember? We wanted the locals to actually be forthcoming with information.”

She was still shaking her head, back and forth, back and forth. Slow little movements that were only visible because he was right next to her.

“You wanna beat the fuck out of them?” he asked.

Her smile was expected, but that didn’t cheapen it. “I’d really really like that.”

***

Eleven days later, Clint was the one ready to shoot something. It didn’t have to be something alive, but it would have been preferred. Natasha looked her usual calm self, staring languidly out the window, with eyes darting from person to person to person. Seek, find, evaluate, dismiss. He wondered if that was what he looked like on surveillance.

“Anything?” he asked. Desperate.

It wasn’t like they’d been having any trouble. In fact, there was a distinct lack of any trouble. Countless conversations had led absolutely nowhere. Inquiries with the photograph hadn’t yielded even so much as a name. Yesterday, Natasha had even banned him from doing the talking, since he was getting less and less subtle in his desperation to find someone.

“If you were working with me under my previous handler, I would have killed you by now,” she snapped. Clint was so pleased by the snarky comment that it’d dissipated most of his anger. Even if she’d later sunk to her knees, begging to be forgiven for it.

Still, now he was just bored. The only reason they hadn’t left for home yet were the little tidbits that kept SHIELD thinking the two of them would make a breakthrough any moment.

First, several families in the area seemed to be missing children, although no one seemed overly concerned, and no one was looking for them. The populace refused to comment on that.

Second, there had been a large fire about a quarter mile south of the city’s center. Apparently a large storage facility had burned to the ground. And when the locals said “to the ground” they meant it. Natasha and Clint had made a trip out there and found a rectangular ashen landscape. It screamed “cover-up.”

Unfortunately, as cover-ups went, it had been flawless. No one was talking, nothing was discovered, and Clint had gotten tired of sending reports back that said nothing but “status quo.”

Bringing himself back to the moment at hand, he returned to studying Natasha.

“What’s the worst thing you would be willing to do on my order?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Never mind. It was a really stupid question.”

She turned to look away from the second-story window. “You mean morally? Because I thought we’d already established that that particular line in the sand doesn’t exist for me.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure that if I’d told you to shoot Kelly Levine you would have killed me instead.”

She flinched, trying to cover it by standing quickly. “There’s something I’m going to try.”

“Ok?”

“I’m going to use the language that Ximena taught me. Out in the city. See what it stirs up.”

“Wait,” Clint tried, but then she was out the door and down the stairs before he’d caught up enough to her to be confident that she could hear him. “That’s the most juvenile evasion ever. Like I wouldn’t see that for what it was?”

He fell into a fuming silence as she spoke the cobblestone language to a woman on the street. There was confusion, a few sentences in Hindi, and then Natasha was walking down the street to the next person.

“You’re not getting out of this, you know? It’s not like I don’t know where you sleep or anything.”

He sighed heavily as Natasha engaged a smiling young couple, failed to elicit any useful communication, and moved on again.

“I’m not upset that you wouldn’t have killed the girl. It’s one of the things that helps get me through your down cycles. Seriously, Nat. We’re going to talk about this.”

Natasha tried to engage a young man that had just hung up his phone, but this time Clint stepped in-between the two of them, motioning for the man to continue down and ignore them. “Natasha. Would you have killed the girl if I had told you to?”

“Maybe not.”

The few syllables were followed by a sharp intake of her breath, and Clint quickly reached out to cup her face. “And I,” he said firmly, “am so _proud_ of you for that. Now, let’s try out this strategy of yours. Not that I’m sure what you’re end-game here is. And I hope you realize that you’re going to have to do all the talking.”

***

It wasn’t until late that night that the two assassins learned how on-point Natasha’s plan had been. After several hours of fruitless hunting, they’d grabbed dinner and headed back to the room.

It was while they were asleep, wrapped tightly around each other for warmth, that Nat wakened to the first footstep. It wasn’t physically different than most other footsteps, except that this one was placed with _intent._ More importantly, it wasn’t followed by any others, leaving the maker of the footstep standing outside of their window down on the ground floor. Right in front of their door.

Clint’s eyes opened when the owner of the footstep put his hand on the downstairs doorknob. Now they could both distinguish that there were multiple sets of footsteps. They both silently grabbed and readied weapons when the doorknob turned. By the time the trespassers had reached the staircase, the two were concealed in the natural shadows, high on adrenaline and grateful that something, _anything_ , was happening. While Natasha concealed it better behind carefully still lips, Clint was grinning like an idiot.

They let the first two come into the room before Natasha moved. She intercepted the third while Clint slammed the side of his handgun into the back of the seconds’. The first person to enter the room turned on her heel to face Clint with clear gray eyes that reflected the little light in the room.

“Drop it,” he ordered, hearing the snap of a neck behind him. The woman raised her weapon in response and Clint put an arrow through her skull. He turned back to help Natasha and found her on the ground with her legs wrapped around the neck of their final assailant. The unfortunate man hand one arm trying to pry himself out of the choke-hold while the other open-handed slapped the floor. It was amusingly like a costumed wrestling match.

“It’d be better if he didn’t die,” he mentioned casually, as the man’s movements stilled.

“Look after your own,” she laughed back, causing Clint to look back and find the man he’d first hit struggling to his feet.

“Rude,” Clint said, stepping over to quickly return the man to the floor. “Where the fuck are we supposed to set up a holding room?”

“Mm,” Natasha agreed, as she unwrapped herself from around the hopefully-not-dead man’s unmoving body. “We really can’t do any useful interrogation here. There’s a lovely little train station that isn’t used anymore. I checked it out when we arrived, and it’s still there. A little worse for the abandonment, but, what’s the phrase? Beggars shouldn’t choose.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“What? Chooser isn’t even a real English word.”

“Don’t look at me. I didn’t come up with it.”

***

The man that Natalia had choked out had the semi-displeasure of waking up with Natasha in his lap. With his wrists tied behind him and intertwined through the chair, she’d perched herself straddling him.

“Hi,” she greeted with a grin, as she looked down at his still-off-color face.

The man looked like he’d had worse mornings, and then seemed to realize where he was and what was going on. He began swearing profusely in what Clint was pretty sure was Urdu. Or maybe Punjabi. Fuck, for someone who was working with a U.S. counter-intelligence agency he pretty much sucked at the Western Asian languages. Where was some old fashioned Farsi? He’d even settle for struggling through some Kurdish.

He glanced back at their other prisoner, who had yet to waken from the injection Natasha had administered, while the other struggled violently against his restraints. Natasha easily kept her seat, smiling carefully. It was nothing like the smile she gave Clint. In fact, Clint had never seen a smile quite like that. He imagined it was akin to whatever smile had first inspired Bram Stoker.

“You will let me go,” the man spat out in English.

Natasha answered quickly in the language the man had originally been speaking.

“English,” Clint snapped. “For the love of everything, stick to a langue I actually speak. I mean, it doesn’t have to be English, but find _something_ else that will work for the two of you.”

Natasha made a face at him over the man’s head, but obligingly switched to English, continuing what she’d been saying.

“It’s not like you have anything to lose at this point. Your statistical chances don’t remain very high.”

“I’m already dead now, bitch. Personally, I’m don’t care when or how it happens.”

“You know,” Clint intoned, “I’ve found that ESL students tend to overuse the word ‘bitch.’ I mean, it’s really not as necessary as people seem to think. There are so many other insults that you could go with. It’s really just lazy banter.”

“Shut up, American!”

“That, while clearly meant as an insult, doesn’t hit particularly close to home. It was a better effort, but try again.”

“If you think that I will tell anything to you in this room, then you are not as well trained as you want to think. There isn’t-” He cut off suddenly as Natasha dipped her head down and began nipping at his neck. “Get your filthy mouth away!”

“Hey!” Clint snapped his fingers. “Eyes back on me, big man. Don’t mind her. Finish your thought.”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

“Now that’s a lot closer to the topic I’d like to discuss. I’m personally not thrilled with the way we had to wait almost two weeks before you lot actually got orders to get off your asses and come after us. I have to wonder just how low on the food chain you must be. I know we haven’t been, well, shall we say, misbehaving.”

The man narrowed his eyes, trying to untangle the confusing string of sentences that didn’t seem to lead anywhere. He kept silent, purposefully ignoring Natasha, who was doing something obscene with her tongue and lips to the area just in front of the man’s ear.

“How about,” Clint continued, “you tell me what we did, and I tell you if we did it on purpose.” He put his hands in the air. “Honest truth. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“I’m not answering any of your questions. This is a waste-” he cut off again and bit his lips together as Nat suddenly undulated her body, rubbing herself down and then back up the man’s lap.

“Chaco,” Clint said, “I’m gonna call you Chaco. I hope that’s ok. Chaco, you need to understand something right now. I am more than happy to sit here and wait for our extraction team to arrive. They’re getting the gear together to head out now. Really, I wouldn’t mind sitting on my ass and playing solitaire. But there are two things that I’m going to tell you before you make that decision. First, I file a report with whomever picks you up, and there’s this lovely little set of checkboxes I get to choose between. One of them says ‘cooperative’ and the other says ‘uncooperative’. Now, I know those are big words, Chaco, but you really want me to check the ‘cooperative’ box.”

“Fuck you and your-” The word turned into a scream as Natasha suddenly impaled the man’s hand with a stiletto. She drove the knife through in one sure motion that buried the tip in the wood, effectively pinning the man’s hand to the chair. She smiled, breathing hot air against the man’s neck where her face was still buried.

“Second,” Clint continued, “the incredible creature sitting on you right now is the last surviving Black Widow.” The man’s head jerked sharply to the side, an involuntary reaction to the title. “I see you’ve heard of the project.”

The man opened his mouth to speak, but closed it with an audible click of teeth when Natasha tucked the fingers of one hand beneath the man’s waistband, rubbing at the skin with the tips of her fingers.

“She,” Clint brought the man’s attention back to himself, “is the alternative to me. You think she’s disorienting now? She’s just bored. You think she’s dangerous? Half her attention is still on me. Now, please understand that if I choose to sit down on this filthy floor and pull out a pack of cards, she will immediately take my place.”

***

By the time the extraction team arrived, Clint and Natasha had confirmed that the execution attempt had been ordered because Natasha had been overheard speaking the strange language. They had also learned that the orders had come electronically from a man named Bashir, and gleaned that whatever shit was going down was definitely somehow tied to Guatemala.

When the two prisoners had been loaded onto the aircraft, Clint politely declined the invitation to join them on board. “We still have those passports for the mission. We’ll make our own way back.”

If anyone had been against the idea, no one ranked high enough above Barton to risk Natasha’s ire.

“What did you have in mind?” she asked, once they had begun to make their way back to Dabra.

“I need a new memory of you to clear my head of the image that is now permanently seared into my eyes.” He glanced up, watching her try to figure out what he meant. “I’m talking about you sitting on top of that man with your hands down his pants.”

“It bothered you?”

“I felt like it was…exploitive.”

She shrugged. “It was my interrogation technique to choose. It’s amazing how much it helps to have them so unbalanced. Unsure of where they stand with you.”

“Be that as it may, I was deeply uncomfortable with the exercise.”

Natasha stopped walking suddenly. “You’re jealous,” she stated.

“The fuck I am!”

“No, I know voice tones. Especially yours. You’re jealous.”

Clint took a deep breath, holding it until he felt like his heartbeat was going to burst open his head, and then let it out slowly. “Maybe that’s why I’m so uncomfortable with the entire affair.”

Natasha lips twitched in slight amusement. “Silly boy,” she breathed. “If you wanted, all you had to do was ask.”

Clint jerked her hand away from his chest as she reached for it. He dug his fingers into her wrist, knowing it hurt and knowing she’d let him. He was tempted to slap her right there, but it would bring more attention than he wanted, even in a secluded Indian city. You never knew who you’d want to have never noticed you.

“What the _fuck_ did I tell you about that?” The words came out through gritted teeth and he knew he was letting his embarrassment and self-flagellation rule his decisions. Not that that changed anything.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she was off on her endless repetitions, although Clint noticed that these were all in English. Was that because he’d told her to only speak languages he knew? Even though that had been hours ago.

Clint had enough experience with panic attacks to feel a sticky taste of disgust with himself. This girl had so completed capitulated to his will over her own that even her calm-down rituals changed as he directed.

He let go of her wrist and used the hand to card through her hair instead. “It’s ok. We’ll talk about it when we get home. For now, let’s just do something fun, ok? I want to see you do something fun.”

“Like what?” The question was almost as quiet as she was still.

“Well, I know there’s this great bungee jump in Shivpuri.”

That, at least, got him a small smile.

***

“Look,” Clint sighed as he curled himself more tightly in Dr. Allen’s office chair. “It’s not like I’m not paying attention. But she keeps all her cues to herself. More importantly, I’m not sure I’d even recognize her cues if they hit me in the face. We’ve talked about her limits and how her tolerance is different than other people’s, but I think I’ve taken it too far sometimes. I need a better line in the sand.”

“How’s the research into d/s practices going?”

Clint shrugged. “It’s going. I’ve been having a semi-profitable conversation with a professional in an online forum, but it’s only so much use when there’s a lot of classified information in play.”

“What have been some of her more useful suggestions?”

“Explaining what the punishment will entail before we start. That’s probably been the most help. It forces me to be calm and think it through beforehand, and it lets me at least _try_ to gage her reaction. But that doesn’t work as well for the cases where stuff just happens on the fly.”

Dr. Allen narrowed her eyes. “I think the idea is to completely eliminate the ‘on the fly’ situations. That’s the _point_ of discussing it beforehand.”

“It’s just for the little things that are easier to deal with in the moment. I don’t want to have to take her back to the room for every little thing. It’s that or deal with the emotional fallout of making her wait for correction.”

“You poor boy, what an inconvenience this all must be to you.”

“Fuck off,” Clint snapped. “I’m doing the best I can, and I’m noticing that no one seems particularly concerned with _my_ emotional wellbeing these days. This is not easy, it’s not fun, and I’m not qualified. Which changes nothing about the fact that everyone is judging me for every little mistake I make.”

“You’re blatantly ignoring advice given to you by professionals. That’s different than frustration caused by being unable to do something. At least think it over. See what you can do to minimize “off the cuff” discipline.”

“I’ve already said I’m trying.”

“What about a safe word?”

Clint scoffed. “She’d never use one. I could take literally her apart and she’d still roll over, if I asked her to.”

“Nonetheless, I’d recommend having a one in place. Not so much because she’d use it, as you indicated, but because of the psychological ramifications of having an out. Besides, you might mention to her that it can be used outside of punishment scenarios. If she feels overwhelmed or emotionally compromised. If she feels one of those flash backs coming on.”

“Fine. We’ll put a safe-wording system into play. I’ll explain it to her.”

“Good. It might pave the way to her actually using it in the situations you’re concerned about. Eventually.”

“I really wish you’d just talk with her. This ‘secondary messenger’ shit is really negating the effects. Couldn’t you just have one conversation with her?”

“It’s not my area of expertise, Barton. I’d be loath to interject where I’m not qualified. It’s definitely something that is frowned upon in my field.”

Clint leaned forward in the chair. “Well isn’t that just the most hypocritical thing you’ve said, _ever_.”

Dr. Allen pursed her lips together. “Nevertheless, I am not being forced into the situation against my will. I have a choice, while you do not. I also have other responsibilities that I have to attend to.”

“Whatever,” he said as he leaned back again. “Honestly, at this point, I’m more concerned that the situation is getting away from me.”

“How so?”

“I mean, I knew we were going to get close. I just don’t think I’d realized how close. You can only spend your every waking moment with someone completely devoted to making your life perfect before it starts to…mess with you.” Dr. Allen raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. “She’s just…she’s not unattractive, and I thought we successfully killed the idea of a sex thing, but she brought it up again recently.”

“Are you expressing sexual attraction for this girl?”

“It’d be hard not to, ok!? It’s not like I’m going to do anything about it. Fuck, I wish I hadn’t said anything now.”

“I’m actually glad that you brought it up. Especially since I’m now concerned that you’re so vehemently disgusted by the idea. If I were you, I’d be careful not to overreact.”

“Meaning what?”

“I’m saying that Natasha has significant mental associations between sex and violence, especially if your last mission report is considered. But sex is not the problem. It’s her assumption about it that you’re going to need to try to dismantle. Stripping all sexuality from her life might cause more damage than you’re thinking. Perhaps you should try giving it a more positive association.”

“Be that as it may, it’s not going to be with me.”

“And who would you suggest it be with? You’re the only person she actually _wants_ right now at all.”

“That’s just not something I can do. I think the whole relationship is confusing everyone.” He paused. “I care for her more than I should.”

“I don’t think, Barton, that you can care _too_ much, in a situation like this.”

“Yeah? Well, I clearly beg to differ.”

“In my official, professional, opinion, I am advising against cutting yourself off from this girl. You’re her only outlet into real attachment. Don’t define it by abandonment.”

“In the end, Dr. Allen, I have to do whatever I think is right.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: graphic torture w/permanent damage.

The problem with doing really well in a mission is that you tend to get given another one. And their mission had been a complete success. Even though they hadn’t manage to find the man in the photograph, there was still a pretty significant amount of information coming out of their prisoners. Rumor had it that whenever the interrogators hit a wall, they’d shrug their shoulders and say, “Guess we better get the Black Widow in here.”

Which, of course, meant that Clint was sighing heavily over his email just a couple of weeks later, staring at the scheduling for their upcoming mission’s briefings. It wasn’t that he didn’t think the mission had done Natasha good, but this was a group mission. As in, other people.

He shut the laptop with more force than necessary and rotated in the chair to look at her. She was lying on the bed with her head hanging upside down off of it. She had a book held in front of her face, but she was looking at him over it. Which Clint figured she had been doing since he’d seen the “Group Mission” status of the file they’d been sent.

“Bad news?” she asked.

“Possibly. Depends on how well you do, really.”

“I’ll do exceptionally.”

“Yeah, well, let’s hope so. What are you reading?”

“ _The Sanctuary_.”

“What’s it about?”

“So far it’s about some really useless people, as far as I can tell. There’s this guy in a prison who is slowly being tortured to death by the warden, because he keeps wanting to help people. Not because he’s actually helping anyone, but because people can tell he wants to, so they keep hurting people in front of him.”

“That sounds uncomfortable for him.”

“Yeah, except he just keeps taking it. He’s supposedly this ex-assassin/soldier and could kill them all, but he doesn’t. It’s against his code or something. Meanwhile his wife is being psychologically tortured and trying to save him at the same time.” She paused. “I can’t figure out if she’s useless or not.”

“How so?”

“Well, she doesn’t really have any applicable skill sets, but she’s getting shit done. Seriously, she’s not afraid to raise hell, no matter her lack of education on any sort of war tactics. It’s better than what’s-his-name in the prison anyway.”

Clint smiled suddenly. “Look at you, reading and getting mad at fictional characters. Just like you’re a normal person.” He’d been worried that she’d began withdrawing more and more, but this was the most verbal she’d been in weeks. He hoped it was a sign that she was finally done with the emotional “withdrawals” she’d been going through since he’d began enforcing the “no touching” rule.

She made a face. “I am not.”

“No, but maybe one day. Now get your stuff together. We’ve got a briefing in a few minutes. Rick will be there, so at least someone knows you.”

“Speaking with Rick is very profitable.”

“How so?”

“He’s is very knowledgeable on guerilla war tactics.”

“I know. I’m forced to listen to the two of you at least once a week.”

“He’s a poor teacher, though. He’d do better if he stopped trying to present his information in conversation format.”

“You’d break his heart if he heard you say that.”

***

Their first briefing went about how Clint had expected. The team was made of seven members in total, so that made four who had had very little interaction with Natasha, if any. However, if the side-glances meant anything, they’d still heard of her.

Regardless of his neutral feelings about Rick, Clint was glad to see him in the room, especially given the warmth with which he greeted Natalia. It made everyone relax a little bit, and the furtive glances changed into curious examinations.

Clint had been on a previous op with Kaylie Rodstrum, and he’d been on several with Keith Shultz. The other two must be Matthieu Aguillon and Afya Srour. Aguillon and Srour had worked together extensively in Pakistan, and Clint figured that was a good an indication that this case would be a follow up to their last as he was going to get. Not to mention that Rodstrum had spent four years in deep cover in Guatemala and still had contacts there.

“Agent Barton, Romanova,” Srour introduced herself. Aguillon waved casually from the background. “I hear you’re the ones we have to thank for Bashir’s location? Actually, for the fact that we even know his name.”

“Natasha,” Natasha said, seeming content with the single word correction. Clint couldn’t tell if it was a bad sign that she was so adamant about the new name, though he guessed it depended on whether she like it because it associated her with him, or if she liked it because it was her own.

_Huh. I guess those thesis papers are paying off, after all._

“Can do,” Srour laughed. “Though I personally prefer my surname. This is Agent Matthiew Aguillon, or Matthiew, or Matthew, or Aguillon, or Mat. He really doesn’t give a shit.”

Matthiew shrugged obligingly.

“Anybody know what we’re doing?”

“I do,” announced a small man in a well-cut gray suit. ‘So, if I may have everyone’s attention?”

There was a brief rustle of clothing as everyone settled into the row of chairs. Except for Natasha, who quickly settled herself at Clint’s feet. Clint, in response, turned an alarming shade of red and quickly ducked down to tell her to sit in her own chair. The exchange was uncommented on, but not unnoticed.

For the entirety of the short briefing, Clint debated with himself over whether the reprimand had been the correct decision. He could practically hear Dr. Allen’s voice lecturing him on the selfishness of choosing to avoid his own embarrassment. Natasha, for her part, sat still and quiet. Which was becoming more common than it used to be.

Was that some kind of a red flag?

***

Natasha could remember when she’d first noticed that her original handler had been growing less interested in her. The first clues were how he wouldn’t touch her all the time. It used to have been that his hands were everywhere, grounding her to the earth. Without them, she was anchorless.

After that, he became harder to please. That, in and of itself, was a gradient decline. It started in the bedroom, progressed to the classroom, and threatened to extend to fieldwork.

It wasn’t that he was _un_ pleased. It was just a complete lack of interest. No energy. There had used to be a certain smile that was just for her, and then it was gone.

This new handler, Hawkeye, Barton, sir, whatever he was demanding to be called this week, was losing interest much more rapidly. It made her feel sick. Everything was splintering through her hands and panicking over it would only ruin everything more quickly.

It was like there was some vital piece of information out there that she was missing. Something that would explain to her exactly what he wanted.

Why couldn’t he just tell her? She’d give it to him in a heartbeat, even at the cost of her life. After all, wasn’t that what this slow decline into suffocation was? Lungs willingly filled with water.

When they got back to the room she stood aimlessly near the doorway for a while. But he liked her to keep busy, so she made a slow show of changing out of the meeting gear and into workout gear. Not that he so much as looked at her. In fact, he kept his eyes pointedly the other direction.

“Are you punishing me for something?”

He sighed that stupid long-suffering sigh that meant he wasn’t going to answer her question and then sat down slowly on the bed.

“Why do you think I’m punishing you for something?”

She shook her head, full of a thousand answers. _Because you’re ignoring me. Because you don’t think I can work well with people. Because you started out praising me all the time, but now you hardly do it ever. Because you don’t watch me shoot or stretch anymore, you just pay attention to your own routines. Because everything is training. Because our first mission was flawless, but then you ripped my hands off your chest. Because I disgusted you, and it was all over your face. Because you won’t let me climb on top and push you down to lie on the mattress._

She cut off the thought, disappointed in herself. He still had sex off the table, and it honestly hadn’t really crossed her mind much until he’d stopped touching her altogether, with no explanation. Now her mind was becoming desperate for ways to trick him into touching her, and it was getting out of hand.

Shaking her mind free, she spoke clearly, “It wasn’t anything in particular. Sometimes it’s good to just check.”

He laughed quietly through his nose, so there was that, at least. For a half-second, she thought he’d motion her over to come stand between his legs. Just to stand there. Some touch. Any touch.

“What do you want to do today?” she asked over her own thoughts.

“I thought, you could give me a crash course in M'am or Q'anjob'al. Apparently we’re going to spend some time in the more rural areas and, either way, we’ll be focusing on the indigenous population.”

He wanted to stay here, with her, in a room small enough that she could jump across it, and he’d _still_ pretend she wasn’t even there.

He wanted her to teach him something? She wasn’t falling for this shit anymore. It was a new kind of torture. Just another method of training her to endure. Heal her just a little bit, and then break her again.

It wasn’t going to happen.

She carefully pictured the new name written in red paint across smooth newsprint. NATASHA, all spelled out. She imagined shredding it into pieces so small that the paint flaked off. And then everything blew away in the wind.

“Yes, sir,” she smiled.

***

Clint could sense something off in the turn of her mouth. Like the feeling you get when you pick up something you didn’t know was delicate until it crunched within your hand.

It scared him, so he elected to ignore it.

***

Four days later Clint had resolved he was making Dr. Allen talk to Natasha. She’d been back-sliding again. Not as much during the whole dehydration issue, but he was now “sir” again. She ate quickly and only what was given to her. She ignored both Rick and Kay. She was still making the little sarcastic comments, but they’d becoming more cutting. Her eyes had gone back to watching every move in the room.

She’d stopped correcting anyone when they called her the wrong name.

Not that he had any time to deal with it now, considering they were literally on a plane heading for Central America. Info had it that Bashir had settled in just a little bit north of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.

They were also pretty sure that the slaving ring he was running wasn’t getting its supply there, but from recurrent expeditions further south and into the clusters of indigenous populations. However, the mission was a grab-and-wrap aimed at Bashir. Even though the younger members of the group had made brief arguments for prioritizing the rescue of the “cargo.”

Clint wasn’t one of them. He was more than a little preoccupied with Natasha.

It wasn’t like she seemed dangerous. If anything, she was following his orders with increased alacrity and precision. He was really hoping that arbitrary regression was part of the standard Stockholm syndrome recovery.

“So, Natasha,” Afya called across the aisle and over Clint. “What do you like to do for fun?”

Clint sent out a silent prayer that this wouldn’t go horribly wrong, and settled in to watch over the conversation carefully.

“I enjoyed learning new things.”

“Enjoyed? As in, past tense? Why? You aren’t learning new things anymore?”

“I have not been recently presented with an opportunity.”

“Girl, people are learning new things all the time. Sometimes it’s how to put on a particularly ridiculous shoe, and sometimes it’s how to reload a gun you’ve never held before only your being shot at and can only use one hand. Not all days can be like the latter. Take what you can get.”

“Apologies, then. I haven’t been provided much opportunity for learning something useful.”

“Did you listen to a damn thing I just said?”

Natasha turned to look straight at Afya at that. When she spoke, she curled her lips into a sneer at the end of each word.

“I don’t answer to you.”

“Nat!” Clint snapped. “She’s not only your teammate on this mission but technically you’re ranking officer. Try and dig up a little more respect.”

“Yes, sir.” Whispered with downcast eyes. She turned and curled up in her seat to look out the window.

Clint shrugged at Afya. “She’s having a bad…week.” The lame reassurance didn’t help. Worse, Afya seemed to have been more frightened than pissed off at the abnormal interaction.

“I don’t envy you that,” Keith spoke up from behind, leaning forward so Clint could better hear him. “Remember that teenager we pulled out of that hole in Estonia?”

“Hadn’t been outside in years. Yeah, I remember. He got handed back to his parents, right?”

“Yeah, but last I’d checked up on him he still hadn’t spoken. Hadn’t stopped eating dirt either.” He punched Clint playfully on the arm. “At least you don’t have to worry about that with her.”

“Hmm,” Clint hummed, non-commitantly.

“Seriously, though,” Keith continued, lowering his voice and learning closer to Clint. “I know it’s not easy. Everyone knows it’s not easy. You’ll do right, and you’ll figure it out.”

Clint laughed bitterly. “Yeah? Tell it to her.”

Keith was kept from responding by the order for radio silence as they began their approach toward the runway that was being commandeered for their “questionably-legal” requisition.

***

Finding Bashir didn’t turn out to be nearly as much of a problem as SHIELD had anticipated. Unfortunately, the complications from that point onward set a new record for “most things gone wrong.” Which was an underground ranking system (and betting pool) that had been established a few years ago.

Rumor had it that one Tony Stark would intermittently join in the betting, at least for the brief periods of time between when he hacked into the servers and when he got kicked off again. Not that he had any idea exactly what he was hacking into. Or betting on. Really he just showed up, wired a lot of money out, and then got booted in the middle of a sentence. For whatever reason, he found the pastime entertaining.

Clint had once asked Coulson about why SHIELD allowed the breaches. Coulson just rolled his eyes and said something about, “a good a way as any to find our security flaws.”

All of which was so completely irrelevant to the problem at hand, Clint thought fiercely, curling himself up smaller so to better fit behind the ice chest he’d elected to use as his shitty cover. He checked his remaining ammo. Which was low enough that a four-year-old could have counted it.

Shit. What he wouldn’t give to have Natasha with him.

***

The first Natasha knew of the attack was when the message came in from SHIELD’s headquarters that there had been a disturbance in the market. Witnesses said that the four agents had been pulled into vans and no one had stopped them.

It wasn’t supposed to have been the dangerous part of the mission. Bashir used manipulation rather than force, so he didn’t have more than a few body guards. Even the original entry hadn’t caused a lot of problems. Their element of surprise had earned them the “no casualties” gold star.

And then one of the prisoners let slip that there was one more guy down finalizing exchange rates in the middle of the city, and they had done everything so perfectly flawlessly by this point, why _wouldn’t_ they have sent a few people out to pick him up?

So Clint sat Natasha down to guard their prisoners while Rick and Kaylie volunteered to stay to help, regardless of Clint’s insistence that she could handle it. And they were supposed to have been back ten minutes ago, and they hadn’t been answering answering their radio, and suddenly that stupid message from headquarters was saying that half their team just got pulled off the streets by enemy soldiers that weren’t even supposed to be there, and Natasha couldn’t breathe.

“They’re trackers were disabled,” Rick was saying. “We have nothing. Worse than nothing, we vaguely know that there’s a very efficient strike force out there.”

“What are you suggesting? That we bail and run?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, Kaylie.” He sounded tired, not angry, and Natasha wanted to hurt them all till they panicked. Dig fingers in and break something. “We need to get Bashir and his men back to SHIELD. That was the mission. If you want to wage a personal campaign afterward to get the rest of our team back, I’ll be completely on board. But we need to finish the mission.”

“What about her?”

Her being Natasha.

“She’ll have to realize what’s best for SHIELD. What Clint would want.”

“As if,” Kaylie scoffed, at the same time that Natasha said, “Make me.”

The room descended into uncomfortable silence, while Natasha silently got up off the floor from where she’d been playing guard duty. She walked around the room, gathering the things she’d need, already planning out the step-by-step. She’d have to break him fast, because she doubted the extraction force was going to take as long as she would like.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Rick snapped. “Come on, Nat. We have to get this moving.”

“Rick,” Kaylie warned from behind him. “Whatever we decide to do, I think it’s best that we let her do her own thing. She’s got a different priority system. Just leave her alone.”

“Smart girl,” Natasha answered, continuing to move around the room.

“It’s ok,” Rick said. “She and I are friends. I can talk her down.”

Kaylie snorted and rolled her eyes. “I don’t think the two of you define ‘friend’ the same way. “You’re not going to be able to take her in a fight, and I’m telling you it’s going to come to a fight. Just grab the prisoners and let’s go. I’ll grab Bashir.”

As she finished the sentence Natasha already had a gun on her. “Don’t touch him. He’s mine.”

“See?” Rick crowed.

“Shut up, Rick,” Kaylie snapped. “That’s not what she meant. Nat, sweetheart, can you put the gun down? It’s hard to figure out next moves and all that stuff when I’m having to think primarily about not getting shot.”

“He’s mine,” she repeated.

“Yeah, I get that.” Kaylie ran a hand over her face and sighed. “Rick, we’re in a corner, and I think I’m taking her side. Bashir probably knows what happened and where the rest of our team got taken.”

“Meaning what?! That we torture it out of him? Not going to happen. I stayed away from the acquisitions team for a reason. I am _not_ comfortable with this.”

“Then what do you suggest?” Natasha had lowered the gun and gone back to focusing on Bashir. She pulled one of the metal chairs across the room, harsh scraping forcing Rick and Kaylie to raise their voices.

“I suggest that we force her comply!”

“Usually I appreciate your confidence, Rick. I really do. Hell knows we sometimes need the positivity. But if you think the two of us can take her then you’ve bypassed arrogant and gone straight to delusional. It’s not an even match.”

It was like Rick deflated suddenly. He leaned against the wall and put his head back against it. “I know. I just…I really don’t want to be here for this.”

“I understand. I’m not super-excited either, but we just have to grit our teeth ok? Let her take care of it and-” She screwed her face shut with tightly closed eyes as the first scream came from Bashir.

“I’ve got really limited time,” Natasha explained. “Which would normally be good news for a POW, since you only have to hang on so long. Unfortunately for you, it means that I’m just going to have to work without any boundaries. Things like ‘permanent damage’ and ‘life-risking’ go back on the table.”

She’d dug a thin knife between the nail and the bed of the pointer finger on Bashir’s right hand. He still had the bag over his head, but he was thrashing around violently. Not that it did anything to loosen Natasha’s grip on his wrist. With a twist, the nail popped off, leaving a runny bloody nail bed. Natasha calmly dipped the finger in an acidic cleaning agent that only heightened the man’s screaming. Kaylie could see that she was wearing blue nitrile gloves to protect her own skin.

Somehow the unexpected forensic aspect made everything more horrible.

“What I’m going to do, is start distally, and make my way toward your body. And I’m going to have to be efficient, so try and keep up.” She had another two fingernails off before she’d finished the speech. A brief struggle when Bashir thrashed harder, and then the man’s hand resembled the results of someone who didn’t have any particular nail polish skills having a go at it anyway.

Natasha held the fingers under the acid, working away at the weeping beds with the tip of her knife. Morbidly fascinated, Kaylie took a few steps forward to get a better look.

As she’d suspected, Natasha was drawing little designs into the skin where the nail had been. Kaylie recognized that they were Russian letters, but didn’t know what they said.

Suddenly, Natasha reached up and pulled the hood off Bashir, holding up his hand so he could see.

“They’re pretty, no?” The skin was being eaten away by the acid, turning red and blistering. Pretty wasn’t the word Kaylie would have used, but that was the last she understood, because suddenly Natasha was talking a thousand miles an hour, soft smile on her lips, in a language Kaylie, with her South American focus, didn’t understand.

Rick apparently did, because he suddenly said, “Oh, God” and threw up in the corner.

“What is she telling him?” Kaylie asked, but Rick just shook his head.

Bashir started speaking then, in whatever language Natasha had chosen. Now the knife was teasing around the first joint of the first finger, slicing in deeply. There was less blood than anticipated, and Kaylie guess that was due to the acid’s affects.

Suddenly, Natasha twisted her fingers like one would take off the top of a strawberry and part of Bashir’s finger fell away.

Natasha continued her way down the hand, and Kaylie found she couldn’t look away, even as each tip hit the floor with a dull thud. Bashir’s screaming had changed pitched, and his words seemed more frantic than angry.

It still wasn’t what Natasha was looking for, because she then moved on to the other hand. She was murmuring softly now. Gently. The tone of voice one would use on an infant who was just falling asleep.

“I can’t,” Rick stuttered from behind her. He’d taken out his gun, safety off and was looking in Natasha’s general direction. How he expected to be able to shoot at her when he couldn’t even look straight at her, Kaylie didn’t know. More importantly, Natasha had turned her body so she could keep Rick in her peripheral vision.

“Rick,” Kaylie sighed. “I’m sorry for this, mostly because your intentions are nothing but the best.” With that, she swung the butt of her handgun into the back of his head as hard as she could manage.

Natasha twisted around to look back over her shoulder just in time to see Rick’s unconscious body hit the floor.

“He was thinking about doing something stupid,” Kaylie sighed. Natasha continued to eye her warily for a moment, and then turned to settle back into work.

“You know,” Kaylie’s voice continued behind her, “I don’t like this. I feel like I should get that on the record, somehow.”

“Noted on the record,” Natasha replied through gritted teeth. She had her knife poised to begin again, this time further down the finger than on the other hand. Bashir was breathing heavily in the brief reprieve.

“But I also want it understood that I’m not one of those idiots who sees something going down and is too scared to stop it. I respect Rick’s choice, even if I disagree. But I’m making my own to stand here, Natasha. Or Natalia. Whichever the hell you are right now. And I’m allowing it because there’s not a doubt in my mind that you’ll convince that man to give up their location before our chopper gets here.”

They both breathed softly in the eye of the storm.

“It’s not because it’s right, or because our comrades’ lives are more important than our honor. It’s because I owe you a gratitude for being the person on this team with the stomach to do this. I can’t imagine what being you must be like, but I’m grateful. Grateful to you for taking all the shit of this moment onto yourself, so that the rest of us will be able to walk about clean. Thank you for getting down into the mud and the filth to dig this information out so the rest of us can go home and say ‘we couldn’t stop her’ and ‘she was too strong’ even though this is what was wished for all along.”

“I always stain everything red,” Natasha whispered and Kaylie breathed out hard in amusement.

“Well, today, you get to bleach everyone clean instead.”

***

The first thing Clint knew about the rescue operation was a flashlight beam in his recently uncovered eyes, and a British accent calling him by name. It certainly wasn’t the last. In fact, he had operations yelling into a com placed in his ear before he’d really recovered from whatever drug had been in his IV.

“Say that again?” he mumbled.

“I said, your little _psycho_ tortured Bashir to the point of near uselessness. And threatened two field agents. What were you _thinking_ when you left her alone with them? Now all Bashir keeps doing is repeating your location. Our people can’t manage to get him to respond to or with anything else. And that’s not even starting in on his physical state.”

“I don’t know why you’re surprised.”

“What was that, _Barton_?”

“I said I don’t know why you’re fucking surprised. What did you think was going to happen?”

With that he ripped the com out and chucked it onto the floor of the helicopter. He’d rather sleep now and deal with the shit-storm later. Because as much as he wasn’t “surprised,” it didn’t mean that he wasn’t pissed, and every scrap of that anger was directed at himself.

***

He knew he was being unreasonable. Hell, he’d come out of the medical ward with every intention of being completely calm and, honestly, backing Natasha up. At least until they were alone. The problem was that he’d gotten a glimpse of what was left of Bashir, and he’d dry-heaved right there in the hallway.

_That will never look human again._

He hadn’t been scared of her in a long time, and he didn’t know what to do with the sudden return of the emotion. So instead of facing it, he was hanging around outside the room where she’d been locked in. Waiting for him.

He slid down the wall to curl up in a ball so he could hide his face. He pushed his knees against his eyes, breathing through the mild discomforted as the world distorted into colors in front of him.

Being held, even shortly, in that small room, had done a number on him. The feel of the darkness, the IV in his arm, the quiet shuffling of other prisoners as he faded in and out. Little things that took him back to the memory of dark weeks he would never be able to shake from him mind. When he’d been on the other end of someone like Natasha, with nothing but luck to keep his body intact.

“Clint?”

 _Shit_.

He shook his head a little to try and wipe his tears off on his pants leg before he raised his head to find the owner of the voice.

“Kaylie?”

“Yeah. I figured you’d be down here. Thought you might actually be _in_ the room where your girl is, but out here in the hallways works, too. I guess. For now anyway.” She slide down the wall to join him on the floor.

“She’s not my girl.”

“The fuck she’s not,” Kaylie laughed. “And that shit is exactly why I made my way down here. I have to ask you something really important Clint. Ok?”

“You’re freaking me out, Rodstrum. What’s the question?”

“How are you doing?”

The four words broke him, and he rushed to put his face back in his knees. Not that it did anything to hide the violent breaths that he barely managed to keep quiet.

Kaylie put an arm around his shoulders, a comforting weight, just sitting there. A declared presence.

Eventually he got himself under control, this time having to wipe more than tears off his face. Damn, he was a mess.

“Don’t know how you ended up down here, Kaylie, but I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Clint, it was an honor. Don’t you ever think otherwise. I don’t even know what to say right now, but I’m grateful that you would be so open with me.”

Clint laughed one, derisive. “If you say so.”

Kaylie reached out and took his face in her hand, turning it to look at her. “I say so.” Then she let go and got herself to her feet. “I’m shipping back out to Guatemala tomorrow to follow up on the disaster that was today. I expect I’ll be there for a while, so I wanted to be sure I said this now. Are you listening to me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re not taking care of your girl, Barton. I don’t even need the years I spent as a dom to look at her and know you’re not taking care of her.”

Clint raised his eyebrows at the revelation, but held his tongue.

“Now, what you need to do is either commit, or get the fuck out. I’m not kidding, I’m not exaggerating, and I’m not making ‘suggestions.’ You’re killing her, and you’re killing yourself. I don’t know what kind of half-assed restrictions you’ve got on the whole thing, but drop them.”

“You seem remarkably defensive over someone you just literally watched take a man apart.”

“Saved your ass, didn’t she? I don’t know, maybe I’ve just got a higher tolerance for that stuff. Rick sure isn’t going to speak to her any time soon. Or ever. Hell, he might even put in a transfer request. As if those kinds of activities aren’t going on in the lower levels beneath our feet.”

“Yet you’re defending her.”

“Yeah, because she’s fucked up but not _delusional_. She’s starved of you, but you’re dangling in front of her. It’s not fair. Either let her have you or let her learn to want something else. She’d might actually survive, with an intense suicide watch, if you let her go at this point.”

“It’s not worth the risk.”

“If you honestly believe that, then stop dicking around and take care of her.”

“But-”

“No buts. ‘Do or do not. There is not try.’”

“So, fuck her into the mattress then?”

Kaylie’s look softened. “Oh, pet. Is that what she’s asking for? Her words? When you ask what she wants, is that what flies to her lips first?”

“Well, no. Actually, it’s usually something more…mundane.”

“Then it sounds like the whole ‘do or do not sex’ thing is a conundrum of your own construction.”

“She’s not exactly capable of understanding it.”

“Which means that you’ll have to be twice as careful.”

“You’re seriously suggesting I let this become a sexual relationship?”

“Do _not_ do anything that you’re uncomfortable with. She’ll sense it, and it will only make the problem worse. But I think you might be being a little too hard on the girl. She’s not stupid.”

“She’s physically incapable of saying no to me.”

“I’m not telling you to fuck her, ok? That’s not where I’m going with this. I’m just asking you to realize that she might not be able to understand a relationship that doesn’t have an intimate element. If fucking her is your line in the sand, then great! Don’t go there. But don’t draw the line even further back ‘just in case’ you confuse her. She’s already confused. Make her relationship with you safe first, and then you two can figure out what it is, exactly, afterward. Self-denial isn’t always the answer.”

Clint watched her for a moment. “How long are you going to be in Guatemala?”

“Aw. Long time, I’m afraid, but thanks for the compliment.” She turned to walk away down the hall, calling back over her shoulder, “And if I come back, and you’re still playing Hamlet, I’ll beat the shit out of you for it.”


	11. Chapter 11

The word resolution comes from the Old French, where it originally meant to break something down into its simplest form. In modern society, it bounces around between the solution to a problem and the mental decision to face something.

All of them were apt as Clint scanned his palm on the door lock. Because the entire problem had just been dissected before him, and he’d been handed the answer on a silver dish, even if it had already been in the back of his mind for days. And damn it if he wasn’t completely done half-assing this.

***

She was completely at a loss to know how he would react. If it was her old handler, she’d have been sure that she’d made the right choices. But Hawkeye was just too different. He’d given whole speeches about protecting the other people on this base. He’d made it clear she was bottom of the chain of command. And he’d never shown much of a sadistic streak.

All three of which directly contradicted the possibility that he’d be pleased with her. She let the hope crumble away from her like ash.

And then the door was opening and he was standing there, watching her. She watched back until his eyes hurt her too much. They could see everything, and she didn’t want to be seen.

Suddenly he was crossing the room, and she braced herself for whatever type of pain he had hidden underneath his still features. It left her completely unprepared for how he embraced her. Wrapped all around her like a shield. One hand encircled her back and the other held her face against his neck and the whole thing was just so much _sensation_ that she began to tremble.

At that, he let her pull away. “So,” he sighed. “I’ve been briefed on what happened after I…’left’ the area.”

“Did I do well?” The hope had returned in spite of herself, though it faded again quickly at his laugh.

“Um, no. I can’t say that you did well. I mean, I’m not mad. I know you could have done a hell of a lot worse. And I have to take some reasonability, after all. I did leave you there. No matter how much I wanted a little alone time, that wasn’t the way to take it.”

He pulled the chair out from the table, metal scrapping on concrete, and sat down.

“What should I have done?”

He threw his hands up in the air. “Like I know? Acquisitions is upset, but I think it’s mostly because you did all their work for them. Honestly, the only thing that concerns me is how you had the stomach, and the know-how, to pull that stuff off.” He leaned back in the chair, and then gestured for her to come over. She moved quickly before he could change his mind.

“Sometimes it’s a necessary skill set,” she said quietly. He maneuvered her to stand between his legs, and pinned her thighs between his knees.

“Yeah, but I’m hoping to get you to the point that you don’t want to capitulate to it anymore. You have such a brilliant mind. Really, it’s something else.” She shivered. “I know you have more at your disposal than some knives and self-concocted acidic mixtures. Between the two of us, in India, we broke a man with a single knife-wound.”

“I didn’t have time.”

“I know,” he sighed, now running his hands up and down her arms. “I know, Natasha.” The name, falling from his lips like it was being written out again in red paint. This time for her to keep.

“Are you going to punish me?”

“Do you want me to?”

_I want your attention. I want it to stay here on me until I can’t even breathe._

“Yes.”

“We’ll see. First, I have something that I have to say to you.” And with that, he slid off the chair, kneeling, while Natasha’s mind kept replaying that few seconds in a loop, trying to make sense out of it. Trying to find an explanation that was anything besides the reality of _this_ man, kneeling at _her_ feet.

With a cry, she dropped down to join him, quickly enough that her knees would bruise.

“Don’t,” he whispered, and she shook her head because that was her line in that moment. “I need to tell you, all right? That I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for how I’ve been. I was given a thousand warnings, and I got overwhelmed anyway. I didn’t put in the effort to seek help. I ignored the signs you were giving me in a hope that they’d go away. I constructed your treatment to fit my own agenda, and I will never be able to make it up to you. I didn’t believe you when you spoke.”

“I can’t,” she said, and then she was repeating it in a hundred languages, just in case one of them held a deeper meaning than any of the others. Not that she was even sure what kind of meaning she was trying to convey.

“I know. Here.” He twisted around so that he was sitting with crossed legs. “Put your head in my lap.” She rushed to obey, and closed her eyes when he started threading his fingers through her hair.

He muttered various little calming phrases at her while she forced herself to still. Deep breathes that belied her growing desire. What if this was the last time he touched her like this?

“You and I need to have a conversation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s start out with how you’re thinking right now. As in, this moment. What are you feeling?”

“Refreshed. I don’t deserve it, because of how completely I failed yesterday, and I’m so grateful.” That was the word. Gratitude. It hummed through her.

“No. First off, you didn’t fail completely. Some things happened that were unpleasant and possibly avoidable. But shit happens. Second, what you do and do not deserve from me is unrelated to how well you perform in the field.” He paused. “So this is pleasant? What do you like about it?”

She could feel her hair pulling at her own head as his fingers caught in the tangled curls. Even when the strands went slack she could feel the sensation left behind. She thought through her answer carefully, trying to find the ones he wanted.

“I like how you move me,” she breathed. “I know you’re there.”

“Like this?” He pulled harder, twisting the back of her head up so she angled to face the floor.

“Yes.” Too breathy. She struggled to get her breathing back under control. Silent air in the silent room.

“What next?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What do you want me to do next?”

“I don’t understand. I’m sorry. I don’t…” Why was he asking such difficult questions? Forcing her to think about the here and now instead of drifting in the sensation.

Suddenly he twisted harder and pushed out, displacing her from his lap and up onto her hands and knees. She stared down at the concrete floor, white dust peppered in a thin layer. She could feel it grit into her palms.

He kneeled next to her, the one hand still tight in her hair and the other running up and down her back. Like he’d used to do so often when she’d first come to heel under him.

She kept her eyes wide to keep out tears. He only wanted her to cry at specific times. Tears purposefully wrung out in perfectly created scenes where he reveled in each salt drop.

But this wasn’t him, the memory suddenly returned. Did this new man want her tears more freely, or not at all?

“I think,” he whispered in her ear, “that you and I have a lot of figuring out to do. Of each other. I also think, that it won’t be completely unenjoyable.”

***

Clint wasn’t sure he knew at all what he was doing, but it seemed to be working. She arched her back up into his hand, so he pushed down harder. Which she apparently took as a signal, because she sunk down to lie on her stomach on the floor.

“Is this ok?” he asked, because wherever this fell on the sexuality scale for her, it was in immediate danger territory for him.

“It’s good.”

“Like you,” he answered, feeling the catch in her breathing. “Perfect little girl. Mine, too. My perfect efficiency. So still for me. So clever, to always figure out what’s going on.” He dug back into his own memory, searching for the words he had longed to have directed at him. The words he’d never heard. “You’ve got such an intuition. Figuring things out before anyone else. Talented and sharp. People can stand in the same room as you and have no idea the perfect danger underneath.” Another catch, and Clint realized it might have been a sob.

He removed his hand from her hair, and pushed her to roll over. Sure enough, there were wet streaks on her face. He reached out and rubbed his thumb back and forth across her cheek, which he’d originally had no intention of doing, but how could he not when it was _right there_?

“Put your hands above your head.”

She moved them up, wrists clasped together as if by handcuffs, regardless of the complete lack of their presence. Self-bound.

“So much control. Everything held so still on your surface. Say it. Say ‘I am flawless.’”

“I am flawless.”

“Now, ‘I am complete.’”

She opened her mouth, but it was like the words stuck there. He tightened his grip where he still had one hand wrapped around her face and chin. “I am complete,” she managed.

“Beautiful.”

He moved his hands away, though he kept his seat next to her. She stared up at him, finally asking, “What now?”

“I think…that we should head back up to debrief. I did most of mine while in the medical bay, but they’ll probably want to talk to you. I’ll be right there with you though. Heaven help them if they try and change that.”

***

It turned out that acquisitions was less pissed than they had been originally. Apparently, once Bashir had calmed down, he’d been more than happy to provide all sorts of information. He didn’t know as much as everyone would have liked, but he was being very helpful, even if flashbacks did keep interrupting the interrogation.

Unfortunately, that fact created its own set of problems. Because that was two pre-broken prisoners Natasha had sent them. It wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Agent Giovi, the head of acquisitions, was there to personally put in a request for Natasha’s regular assistance in the interrogation rooms.

Clint had already spat out a number of phrases along the lines of “over my dead body,” and the room was becoming tense enough that he was starting to worry about an overreaction from Natasha, when Coulson arrived.

Which was a huge relief on so many levels, because Clint hadn’t even know that the undercover assignment he’d been on had ended.

The thing about Coulson was that, by the time he was done, everybody left the room feeling like they’d gotten what they originally wanted, whether it was true or not. Unless he didn’t like you. In which case, you still left without your original desire, but you were unhappy about it.

Giovi left unhappy. Which Clint was completely content with.

“She’s not a torture device!” he spat at Coulson.

“Agreed. Speaking of which, how is she?”

Clint ducked his head. “Well, not as well as she could have been. But we’re working on it. And I got my head out of my ass, and I think things are going to turn around.”

There was a long silence after that, and then a quiet, “Barton?” Clint ducked his head further.

Natasha was standing back by the door, and suddenly made her way forward to join them. She put her hand on Clint’s shoulder and stated, “He’s trying.”

It was the most human thing she’d done since Clint had met her. He quickly reached back to run his hand up and down her back, trying to _will_ the positive reinforcement into her.

“Good morning, Natasha,” Coulson greeted her. And heaven knew how he’d already heard the new name. “I heard you had a difficult day yesterday.”

“I enjoy difficult. Easy is boring.”

“So I’ve heard. Although, I don’t think that Stalton would completely agree with your assessment of the situation. I agree that you handled it the best you knew how, but he had quite a lot to say about yesterday’s events.”

“Rick Stalton suffers from periodic delusions of competence. I believe he had one of those episodes yesterday.”

Coulson’s mouth twitched in amusement. “Oh?”

“Seemed like it from where I was standing. Fortunately, Kaylie was there to administer the proper medical attention.”

“You have a high opinion of Kaylie, then?”

“She’s a beautiful cupcake in a world of muffins.”

Clint laughed once at that one. It’d been too long since he’d heard her humor. What had he been thinking, trying to control her desires? As if that hadn’t been her problem in the first place.

“I’m glad to hear it. Kaylie does have her own specific opinion on the world. Her unique gifts make her both interesting and useful. It’s always nice when someone has both. Not unlike yourself, Miss Romanova.”

“I try.”

“I don’t doubt. I live in earnest anticipation of your next move. I think it’s best that we keep you here for a little while, until the whole on-scene torture thing blows over, but I don’t see why it should be a long-term restriction. Just, promise me that you’ll try and keep the dehumanizing, both physical and emotional, out of the field.”

“I’ll prioritize it.”

“Excellent. Well, Romonova, Barton, I have other cases to review, so, if you’ll excuse me. And Barton? I’ve set a date for the two of us to have a long chat over long term goals here. It’s on your calendar, so please prepare a verbal report.”

“Yeah, ok,” Clint agreed, less than excited.

“It’s not until Friday,” Natasha told him after Coulson had left the room.

“How do you already know that? And why does the extra time matter? It’s just longer for me to freak out about what he’s going to say.”

“Think of it more as time for improvement.”

“Something in particular you had in mind?”

“I’ll be grateful in whatever capacity you want me to occupy. It makes me happy to please you.”

 _Of course that would be her response._ As the conversation had fluttered into light flirting, it had been almost normal, and the odd sentence seemed twice as jarring as usual.

“Well, right now, it would please me to get lunch. I haven’t eaten all day.”

“You had an IV in.”

“That is _so_ not eating.”

***

She knew he wasn’t asleep. Or, at least, he wasn’t asleep for more than a few minutes at a time, jerking away again from his nightmares. She was familiar with the particular type of trauma, and she doubted it was going to go away soon, no matter what she did. A reaction like that didn’t start because of a few hours drugged in an underground cell. Reactions like this one were caused by past experiences, and flashbacks to similar situations. Memories she hadn’t been a part of.

The next time he jerked awake, she sat up.

“I’m sorry. I’m keeping you up.” He sighed heavily and sat up to join her. “I’ll take a walk around the base and calm down.”

He struggled out of the sheets, unsteady when he first got to his feet. She unfolded herself to join him, barefoot on the rough floor.

“You don’t have to come with me.” She should start writing down all the ridiculous things he said. To show him later, when he came to his senses.

“Sure, yeah. I’ll just lie in the bed and stare at the ceiling and wonder where you are and when you’re coming back, and if there’s anything I could be doing to help. Much better than wandering around the base for a few hours.” She clicked on the bedside lamp. “I’ve gone nights without sleep before, and I’ll do it again.”

He was staring at her, eyes tracking the slightest movement of her body. Each breath, each shift, he watched her. Drinking it in. So she kept up the motion, gently swaying from foot to foot, and then settling carefully into her old ballet first position. A pose she’d been afraid she’d forgotten, locked up in a cover identity from another lifetime.

He took a few steps back, and pulled the chair out from under the desk, turning it so it faced her where she was still standing next to the bed. He sat down and crossed one leg over the other. Still watching, staring right at her. Not through her, and not even like a prized possession, but rather like a man looking for the answer in a hidden picture game.

“Any requests?” she laughed. Half-serious, half-unnerved by the intensity of his eyes, accented by his silence. Which made it all the more frustrating when he just shrugged, rather than speaking.

She cast her eyes down to the floor, not that it helped, and slowly raised up onto tiptoes, followed by the little jerk of balance that got her up onto pointe.

She’d lost more of the skill than she would have liked, but it was what she expected. Those weren’t muscle groups or bone structures that needed to be strong in her line of work. After a few moments of perfect stillness, she wobbled and soon collapsed gracefully back to starting position.

And he was still staring.

“I don’t know what you want.”

He just shrugged again. Stupid useless motion that didn’t give her anything. She cast about in her mind, letting her fingers stray along the hem of her shirt. Was that what he wanted? Had he rescinded his decree, putting sex back on the table. If so, she had a lot of lost time to make up for.

The soft hopefulness made his sharp “no” all the more disappointing, and she lowered her shirt slowly back into place, rather than dropping it immediately. A small rebellion, that he let her have. Or that he’d bring up later.

“Tell me what to do,” she tried again.

“Is that an order?” The question came with a smile at his lips, but it still struck her with fear. She forced herself to breathe through it.

She was a clever girl. She must be, since he said it all the time now. So she would figure this out. She could play the give-and-take of a guessing game.

But he stood up then, gesturing for her to come join him and she came, tucking herself in underneath his arm, head on his shoulder.

“How would you feel,” he mused, “about a little breaking and entering?”

“More than excited.” Random extracurricular activities in the dead of night where always interesting. More so when they meant she could give him something he wanted.

“I’m thinking movie night?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I seriously doubt you’ve gotten a practical cinematic education with your upbringing. I didn’t either, and let me tell you, there’s a whole ‘nother world out there.”

She kept silent, more because she didn’t understand than because she didn’t have anything to say. They kept walking through the corridors until Clint came to a stop at one of them, knocking quietly. After of few moments of silence, he tried again.

Just when it seemed nothing was going to happen, the door was thrown open to reveal Dr. Holloway in a knee length nightgown and a tangle of hair that would put a rat’s nest to shame.

“What?” the doctor inquired, sleep heavy in her eyes, but not in her voice. “What happened?”

“I knew you’d be here. Kay, you need to get back to your apartment once in a while.”

“Didn’t want to leave the lab. Everything’s too touchy right now. And speak for yourself. You haven’t been back to yours in months. And don’t even blame that poor girl, because that was a trend long before her arrival.”

“Yeah, yeah, pot meet kettle and all that.”

“What do you want, Clint? It has to be two in the morning or something.”

“Good guess. It’s 0224. We’re having a movie night down in the south conference room. You want in?”

Kay contemplated him for a moment, then said, “This is because you know I have popcorn in here, isn’t it.”

“Duh.”

“What’s the movie?” She glanced over at Natasha. “The Butterfly Effect?”

“You’re so funny. No, I was thinking, Troll 2.”

Kay made a weird sound in her throat. “You want to start her on _that_? And don’t ‘it’s a classic’ me, because that doesn’t explain shit about that movie. You’re never going to able to explain it to her.”

Natasha bristled under the implied insult, but forced herself to stand still when Clint laughed in response.

“Probably not,” he answered, and Natasha looked down at the floor. If he thought she wouldn’t be able to understand, then she didn’t stand a chance. Why did she just seem to get stupider as she grew?

Suddenly his voice cut back into her thoughts. He put his hand under her face and tilted her chin up to look at him. “Hey,” he chided. “This isn’t something you’re supposed to understand. This is just for fun. Trust me when I say that no one, anywhere, has ever understood this movie. You’re not supposed to understand it. It’s just awful.”

“Then why are we going to watch it?”

“So we can laugh at it. Because it’s such a complete failure, that I can comfort myself with the fact that, however I may screw up in my future, it will never be that badly.”

And somehow, that made perfect sense to her.

***

It was the work of a few moments to get into the conference room, and then Clint was pulling up illegal downloads of the movie while Kay turned on the projector. They’d made a stop in the kitchen to use the microwave and filch Swedish Fish from the vending machine. He’d discovered a long time ago how to get them out with a jerry-rigged contraption using an arrow and some fishing wire. Not because he didn’t want to pay for them, but because no one had stopped him yet and, hey, who _hadn’t_ wanted to be MacGyver growing up?

Kay settled into one of the chairs, using another to prop up her feet, and Clint sat cross-legged on the table. Predictably, Natasha climbed up to join him. They shuffled around for a bit, but managed to find a maintainable position with her head in his lap, while she curled up on her side. He could tell Kay was looking at them out of the corner of her eye, but she didn’t say anything.

The movie itself was unremarkable. He’d seen it enough times that he was quoting along with it often enough that Kay started throwing popcorn at him every time she heard him speak. She ran out of popcorn long before they got to the end of the movie.

Clint wasn’t sure that Natasha “enjoyed” the movie, per se, but she did spend the length of it staring directly at the screen. Her expression varied between “wtf” and a slightly more expressive “wtf.” At the very least, she didn’t fall asleep.

Once the credits appeared on the screen, everyone stood up and stretched, eliciting a few comments from Kay about “getting old” that Clint was more than happy to banter back at her with. However, eventually she said, “Can I talk to you for a moment, Clint?”

Clint agreed and sent Natasha on ahead. As soon as the door clicked shut, Kay faced him.

“So,” she started. And Clint jumped in before she could continue.

“I don’t know, Kay. I really don’t know. We’re figuring it out as we go, and we’re figuring it out together, and that’s really the best I can do right now.”

“She spent the entirety of that hour and a half with her head in your lap and with her hand running up and down your knee.”

“I said, we’re figuring it out.”

“Are you…” She sighed. “Are you having sex?”

Clint rolled his eyes. “That’s the questions isn’t it? But no. We’re not. Much as I think it’s starting to annoy her.”

“I don’t know if that’s maintainable. That kind of intimacy…” She trailed off and then shrugged. “Don’t be surprised at how quickly you find yourself falling down that slippery slope.”

“Tell me about it.”

***

When Clint got back to the room, he found Natasha perched on the bed, on top of the tangle of sheets.

“You have a message,” she offered.

Clint pulled open his laptop and opened the message. Anything that came in the middle of the night like this would probably be interesting.

“What did you think of the movie?” he asked.

If she answered the question, Clint didn’t hear it, because his eyes had focused in on a particular line of text within the message.

“What the _fuck_?”

***

“Are you insane?” Clint spat, holding out the assignment paperwork, just in case Coulson decided to play dumb. “I thought we’d successfully determined that this was an awful idea.”

“The mission was successful despite the marked hiccup. I think that’s an indication that this is a remarkably profitable idea.”

“Three person team. It clearly says three person team. You’re doing this to me again. To _her_ again? On purpose, too, because this could _easily_ be a two-person job with some minor readjustments.”

“I’m doing what I think it best for the both of you. And yes, it’s on purpose. She needs to learn to work with a team, or she’s going to be of limited use to us here. It will be a long time before we’d entrust her with a solo mission, and you can’t play handler forever.”

“Does this have anything to do with the Pakistan-Bashir-trafficking thing?”

Coulson frowned. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.” But he shook his head silently, to answer the question.

It didn’t do much to calm Clint.

“Who in the whole of this entire base agreed to join us after the horror stories undoubtedly going around?”

“Keith Shultz. He volunteered. You seem to have focused on the negative aspects of your last mission and have forgotten that, regardless of how she did it, she saved your life. Shultz hasn’t forgotten any such thing. Any more questions?”

“It’s not going to be on her head if it all goes to shit.”

“Any _questions_?”

“No, sir.”


	12. Chapter 12

He’d taken her down to the range early the next morning, hoping to have some time with her alone to try and explain the situation. But in the end, he just ended up silently shooting arrow and after arrow into the targets until even _his_ fingers hurt. He knew she knew something was wrong, but she let him work off the uncertainty without bothering him.

Finally, after he’d emptied his quiver more times than he’d been able to keep track, he stared out at at the target and said, “They’ve put you on another team mission. Agent Shultz will be joining us. It’s a lift, with you as bait.”

He looked over to find her contemplating one of the metal arrows she must have snagged from his quiver without his noticing. She played at it with her fingers, savoring the sensation, the drag against her skin. While a twirl, she handed it over to Clint.

“Hit me?” she asked, palms spread out flat in front of her.

“Right now? Are you sure?”

“Very.”

Clint slung his bow off his shoulder, along with the empty quiver, and placed both on the floor. He ran his thumb along the aluminum, as she’d been doing earlier, and stared down at the white of her palms. Without further ceremony, he brought it down across her hands.

The sound was duller than he’d expected. Metal on taunt skin didn’t have the startling crack that leather did. He watched her face while she watched the thin red line appear. It ran perfectly straight across the upper heels of both hands, carefully placed to avoid breaking bones.

Without warning, he brought it whistling down again, closer to her fingers. She still didn’t flinch, but she did slowly run her tongue out of her mouth, drawing her bottom lip back in with the curl of her tongue.

Clint struck again, twice in quick succession. The four parallel lines were perfect, no overlap or variation. With a short glance up to gauge her reaction, he brought the arrow down a final time, diagonally across her palms. It left a five-tally mark, stretching across her hands.

“Beautiful,” she whispered, when he crouched down to stick the arrow back in his empty quiver. Which was exactly what he’d been thinking. He hurried to jump the partition and pick up his arrows.

When he got back, she was gently tracing the indentations, up and down her hand. “It’s going to be fine,” she told him. “I’m going to be perfect.”

Clint let go of the tension even his archery meditation hadn’t released. Like a breath he’d been forcing himself to hold for no good reason.

“When are you not?”

***

Clint, easily bored, had been amusing himself by creating various analogies regarding Natasha’s current objective to lure the target back up to his bedroom. A few from the endless list had been “like barbeque near a Texan family reunion,” “like a crime magazine reporter at a AA meeting,” and the most recent “like trout to whatever kind of fly it is that trout like.”

He got the feeling that Natasha was trying to tune him out, but was also physically incapable of doing so, given how much attention she needed to give him. But he was bored as hell, so he kept it up.

If this had been a two person team, he’d be breaking into the top floor of the ridiculously lavish mansion, ready to obtain the codes when Natasha got her target to key them in.

But no. Because Coulson wanted her to learn to play nice with others, he was here watching the thing go down with nothing to do but annoy the shit out of everyone. He was kinda of surprised Keith hadn’t said anything yet.

“You still there, Chameleon?”

“Copy that. Is Black Widow on the approach?”

“She’s got the target in sights.”

“Great. Is Hawkeye ever going to shut the fuck up?”

Clint laughed. “There’s it is. I was working hard for that, and no one was giving me anything. You guys are both pushovers.”

He did fall silent, however, when Natasha actually made the approach. She said something in praise of the décor of the house, dropping the name of the sculptor whose work was in the foyer. It got the attention of one Armand Tansi, the owner of aforementioned lavish home.

Natasha “struggled” along for a while in Lingala, and that was the weirdest part of the mission so far, before Tansi laughed and reverted to French. After that, Clint was able to keep track of the conversation.

It didn’t take long for Natasha to maneuver the man upstairs. In fact, it almost seemed like picking the particular target wing was entirely Tansi’s idea. Clint was impressed by how completely Natasha controlled the situation and, after only a few guiding words, Tansi was unlocking his private suite, Natasha in tow.

“They’re in,” Keith whispered to him, presumably as he made his way back across the hall to take the device back out of the lock. He’d planted it hours ago, waiting for Tansi to enter his code. Now that it had been activated by Tansi, the three of them had complete control over the mansion’s electronic locks.

Through the com, Clint heard Natasha’s back hit the wall, along with heavy kisses being laid down near her neck. The breathing got heavier as the greedy mouth moved up toward her ear.

“All right, I’ve got the codes, and I’m clear.”

“You’re good to ditch him, Black Widow,” Clint responded.

He heard a heavy sigh and more shuffling fabric. Tansi was murmuring something in Natasha’s ear that made her laugh. He’d reverted back to Lingala and Clint was surprisingly pissed at being unable to follow.

He could imagine the man’s hands on her. Over her dress, along the rough red sequins that would scrap skin. And then under it, smooth glide along warm body heat, fingers digging deep to bruise, reaching up to places other men had died for touching.

SHIELD was at a two out of three for forcing her into situations like this one, and Clint was starting to get bitter over it.

“Proceed to rendezvous point two and await second signal. Now!” It came out sharper than he intended, but he didn’t give it much more thought, relieved when the frantic noises from the com broke off, and Natasha’s voice came through.

“I- I need a minute.” She was breathless and her voice sounded higher than normal. “I just need a minute to-” She broke off with a low moan, and Clint clenched his teeth.

“ _One_ minute,” Tansi teased. “I’ll count.”

Natasha lingered for a moment, and then her footsteps brought her out of the bedroom. She stepped carefully along toward the bathroom, and then her movements fell completely silent. Straining to hear, Clint caught the click of the door latch and knew she’d made the hall.

“I’m clear,” she said, and there was a frustrated tint to her voice that even Keith caught.

“Then what’s the problem?” he asked her, though Clint guessed he could have answered the questions himself.

“It’s an unnecessary risk. I don’t see why I shouldn’t just let him fuck me and be done with it. Getting pigs like that worked up and then disappearing is a sure way to make sure they’re on alert for the rest of the night. When he notices I’m gone and heads back down, he’ll be looking for me. Or another unfortunate woman who will get more of his anger than she deserves.”

“Well, I appreciate you being willing to take one for the team,” Keith continued, and then snorted. “Which is only a slightly crude way of putting that. But either way, I’m also glad I don’t have to listen to him ‘fucking you’ as you say. You’re part of a team now. Hopefully, you’ll find out that some of the sacrifices you’ll have to make won’t be sacrifices after all.”

Clint made his way across the front room, ready to intercept Natasha, while Keith laughed quietly.

“Plus,” he continued, “there’s always the bonus of my getting to bear witness to the target freaking the fuck out like a two year old having a hissy fit.” The sounds of shattering glass made Clint roll his eyes. “Seriously, guys. I wish I could see him right now. He’s breaking stuff in there.”

“I told you,” Natasha sighed.

“It’s fine,” Clint responded. “I don’t care about his mood, just that he leaves the room.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s leaving now.” A pause. “Confirmed, he’s heading back downstairs now. Black Widow, I hope you’re clear of the building, because you were right. He’s gunning for you, and I mean that literally.”

Clint had made it to the bottom of the staircase and could see her coming down to meet him. He turned as she joined him, and slipped his arm through hers. They made their way toward the front door in tandem, walking just a little more purposefully than the other guests.

“We’re twenty feet.” Clint heard the sound of the lock clicking and Keith was inside the room. “We’re heading to third point, waiting on your signal.”

There was a moment of peace between the three of them and Keith made his way to the safe in the back room. Natasha and Clint made the doorway and crossed the threshold into the driveway. Both groups focused on their own task, yet still inexplicably dependent on the other.

“Safe cleared, confirming drive contents.”

Clint and Natasha made their way through the lines of cars to break through into the ring of bushes lining the driveway. They could hear a rising cacophony behind them within the mansion.

“Is that Tansi?” Clint asked no one in particular.

“He’s killed woman for less than what I did to him.”

“How do you know?”

She shrugged. “It’s a feeling. You get to know the touch of men like that. It’s not something that requires training, as much as a single experience. It’s not a lesson that allows itself to be forgotten.”

“Contents confirmed. Coming out the window. What’s the timing?”

Clint and Natasha had made their way around to the back of the house and could see Keith on his way down.

“You have a good forty seconds. Maybe. He’s really throwing a fit in there, so security might get a little distracted from their routes.”

Which, it turned out, was a correct assumption. The security guard on the south side of the building had heard the commotion and quickened his pace. He came around the curve of the building, AKM at the ready, just as Keith touched ground.

Natasha, unarmed in her cover ID, still moved first. Not of flash of movement on the offensive, since even she couldn’t cross fifteen feet before before a bullet could, but a steady purposed pace. She walked between the guard and Clint, keeping her body as a shield, speaking Lingala fluently. Her voice was low and calm.

The man’s face was etched with confusion, and he hesitated as he looked over her shoulder to Keith and Clint, who both had hands on their weapons. The hesitation cost him his life, because then Natasha was on him and his AKM couldn’t do shit about it.

“What the _fuck_ was that?” Clint spat as he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her toward the tree line, Keith close behind. “You were in my line of fire. More to the point, you were in _his_ line of fire.”

They broke through to the wall, silence falling back on the group as they scaled it and then dropped down to the street below where a few local kids were watching their vehicle. Clint tossed them the rest of the francs he had in his pocket. They all slid into the car, with Keith at the wheel and Natasha and Clint in the backseat.

“When I was in his line of fire, you weren’t.” She said it like it was good enough for all the questions he had to throw at her. “Besides, a gunshot would have drawn the attention of more security than we were prepared to handle.”

“That’s not how it works, Natasha.” This unexpectedly from Keith. His voice was soft and calm, much like Natasha’s had been moments before. “While it was a marvelous play of psychology, if you’d misjudged at all, you’d be dead and Clint would still have had to fire. It would have been a safer play to just let him take the shot.”

Clint pointed at Keith, eyebrows raised, to say _take these words as seriously as if they were my own._

Natasha readjusted her position, shifting uncomfortably. “I don’t understand how SHIELD’s priority system works. It’s like their soldiers are more important than their missions.”

“Uh, yeah. That’s exactly how it works.”

“Then how do they ever get anything done? It’s such a waste. You should have let Tansi have me. It would be over by now and no one would have been on the alert. No guards or almost-gunshots.”

“Did you want him to?” Clint asked the questions without any idea what the answer was going to be. He didn’t even know what answer he hoped for.

Natasha stared down at the floor, keeping her balance carefully as Keith wove between the traffic.

“He smelled like peppercorn and honey,” she finally said. “It was disgusting.”

Clint wrapped one arm around her, drawing her into him, and she buried her face in his chest.

“Are you mad at me?” she whispered.

“A little. But don’t worry about it, ok? We’ll take care of it.”

***

He had been gentle with her all the way back. Through the travel, and then the debriefing. There had been no rebukes from superiors, and nothing but praise for the mission. Though she noticed that everyone left out the details of her methods at the back of the house.

She knew it was just waiting until they were alone. At least he didn’t seem set on delaying anything this time.

As soon as they were through the door, he jerked the chair out from under the desk and shoved it across the floor. It tipped dangerously, but she stepped forward to catch it in more than enough time.

“Sit,” he ordered, and she was already complying. “Let’s be very clear, because this isn’t something I ever what to have to go through again. Tell me, why am I upset?”

“I took a risk that was unnecessary.”

“Why?”

“Because you have said it was unnecessary, so it is.”

He made a noise of disgust and she knew the answer was wrong. She tried to come up with something better, but thought maybe she’d misunderstood the question more than anything else.

“I’ll understand better next time.”

He shook his head as he made his way over to the bed. She had to turn her head to keep him in her sight.

“That’s not what this is about. You understanding, or me understanding, or how the missions went. On paper, you were flawless. You were probably right about the risk of the gunshot, and you probably saved all of our asses from a gunfight that could have ended poorly.” He’d stripped the pillowcase off and had it balled in one hand as he made his way back to stand behind her. “That’s not what this is about.”

He pulled the case down over her face, the thick fabric cutting off the light. She forced herself to take slower breaths, so as not to suck the fabric into her mouth. His hands traveled down her arms and the blindness quickened her other senses. She heard the zip-tie before she felt it around her wrists.

It wasn’t the most secure situation, but his words would have kept her there indefinitely, had he ordered it. So the simple plastic would be more than enough to keep her arms entwined in the chair back.

She heard him move around to the front of her, and the click of a unsheathed knife.

Oh. That was the game. She supposed it had been a long time since she’d been forced toward her breaking point like this. The nervous tick within her stilled. This made sense. Punishment and training went hand in hand more often than not, so this was expected.

Besides, it had been a long time since she’d played at pain tolerance. And the intimate nature of a torturer-torturee scenario wouldn’t leave her wanting for his attention. Even if it would end with her screaming for him to stop.

But the knife didn’t cut into skin yet. He’d slid it between the cuff of her pants and her ankle, slitting the fabric in a smooth motion that didn’t get anywhere near cutting her body. He then repeated the motion on the other leg, so she sat in a pair of makeshift shorts, with shredded fabric beneath her legs.

The cool air grounded her in the moment, and she lost the progress she’d made in sinking her mind away from the situation. She breathed carefully, and began the descent again.

“Are you here with me?” His voice shattered the beginnings of her induced illusion, and she stiffened her body in frustration. When did she get so bad at detaching herself? It was going to be a long night if it continued like this.

“Natasha, I want you here with me. I need you to answer my questions.”

She bit in her lips. He wasn’t going to let her escape the pain? Though she supposed she’d earned it all. If not today, then from something else he hadn’t caught, or had chosen to let her get away with.

“I’m here.”

“Good. Now, let me see if I can explain to you, exactly why we’re doing this.”

She felt the brush of sensation on the top of her foot and braced herself for pain. Which made the gentle kiss all the more jarring. Her lips parted involuntarily.

“You are not just an asset any more than I am just your handler.”

The kiss was repeated at the inside of her ankle, his hands gentle on her leg, holding it in place. She could feel his breath against her skin and it made the rest of her body feel even colder in comparison. Another one, further up her leg.

“You are worth more than your skill set.” Kiss. “You are worth more than your hit list and completed missions.” He pushed her legs gently apart so he could get at the inside of her knee. This time, when he kissed her, he stayed there, with his lips pressed into her, murmuring into her skin. “Your value is not calculable.”

She jerked involuntarily, horrified at her body’s movement when she hadn’t given it permission.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, forcing herself still again.

He laughed against her. “There’s nothing you can do, while we are in the middle of this, that you’ll need to apologize for. Nothing you can do wrong. No sound, no movement. As long as you stay in the chair, and stay with me mentally.” He frowned, the pull of his lips tugging at the skin on her knee.

Then he was gone, all sensation removed, and she almost gasped in the quiet, biting her lips to keep the sound to herself.

“I should say, though, that you can stop it if you want. If you really want. Your word is ‘red.’ It seems particularly appropriate, given your history with the word. If you can’t take it anymore, that’s your release. Understand?”

She nodded, feeling the pillowcase itch against her. She understood, but he didn’t. Not if he thought that word would ever pass her lips. It was partially because she would pay any price to keep from disappointing him, but it was mostly about the attention. As if she’d ever knowingly take his attention off of her, even if it burned with its intensity.

And ‘burn’ was the word, because he felt like fire against her. He had a hand on each leg now as he kneeled in front of her. His left hand was resting on her thigh, and he had the right one tucked back behind her knee, pulling up on it so only her toes touched the concrete beneath.

They waited like that for a while, and then he bent down and kissed the top of her thigh, moving so quickly and quietly that her head jerked backward at the sudden contact. She held her breath for a moment, unsure if he had meant his promise that her involuntary movements were to be forgiven. By the time she relaxed again, his hands were gone from her completely.

“You’re not just my weapon, Natalia. You’re mine. Mine, as in, belonging to me. Possessed. When you protect me at the cost of you, then you’re still risking my own. This!” He took her legs roughly, squeezing to enough to bruise. “It is not acceptable for you to disregard your safety. Not to ensure mine. Not for anything.” His gripped lessened, returned to a soft cling against her. “You have to trust me when I say, you are nothing but valuable to me. I can’t-” Sharp breath. “I just can’t. You’re worth more than a shot in the head behind the house of a some dickhead of a target. You will never be a nameless grave.”

He stood up then, walking across the room toward his desk, pulling at drawers. “Say it back to me.”

She shuddered in anticipation of the taste the words would leave in her mouth, but opened her mouth obediently. “I am valuable.” Pause. “I am valuable, in my own right.” She hoped it would be enough for him.

He crossed back to the center of the room and stood behind her. She sensed the descent of his hands before she felt their touch at the back of her neck, reaching up under the make-shift hood. The cold touch of plastic against the side of her neck was, however, unexpected.

“You’re too astute, Nat,” he explained, and she realized he’d put headphones in her ears. “Taking away your sight doesn’t really do the job with you.” Clicking noises now. “I don’t really know about your taste in music, but this is what I’ve got. Bear with it.”

And then she lost another sense in the drown of music she’d never heard before. It was _loud_ and her orientation spun.

Her head twisted to the side, following the sudden touch of him on her bare arm. Except then there was a touch on her other arm, so he couldn’t have moved to that side, but must be reaching around her.

He kissed suddenly at the back of her neck, and she jerked her head away from him, involuntarily. She panted as he drew her gently back to him, and then all the sensation was gone again.

She tensed, unknowing where the next touch would come, how it would come, what the end purpose of this was. This… _worship_. So much time, on her, and not one scream rung out from her yet. She would have almost said this couldn’t possibly be a punishment, except it was all so _much_ and they had barely even started.

***

She’d been right before, when she’d thought it would be a long night. By the time Clint tired of the game, she wasn’t even sitting upright anymore. She was splayed out, only kept in the chair by the grounding pressure of the zip-tie against her wrists. She had long since descended into whimpering pleas every time he moved against her. Both when he touched, and when he withdrew.

If she’d ever known what she wanted, she’d long since forgotten.

And then the feeling of metal against her wrist, snapped the tie and, bereft of her grounding point, she slid off to land on the floor. A tangle of limbs that she helplessly tried to rearrange into something useful.

She could feel his hands on her, returning her senses. First sound, and then sight. The quiet and the light invaded her, and when he gathered her in his arms she pushed to curl against him, trying to escape the attack on her mind.

“Do you remember why you’re here?”

She struggled to remember her voice, the answer coming out in Russian, to both of their surprise. “Because I am worth more than the mission.” It was the barest essence of his point, but it was enough for him, as he murmured strings of praises against her ear.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, [nathanielbarton](http://nathanielbarton.tumblr.com/) made a [gifset](http://nathanielbarton.tumblr.com/post/124928359875/to-each-his-own-chapter-13-by-shadesfalcon-shed) for this chapter!! :D

He came up with idea while they were still in the cafeteria. And, like every other time in his life, he seemed incapable of letting the idea go once he’d had it.

She stopped eating when she noticed that he wasn’t, and he couldn’t help but see how much more vibrant she seemed, especially compared to a few weeks ago. Her eyes seemed more focused, and she didn’t startle when people moved unexpectedly in her peripheral vision.

“You don’t want the rest of it?” he asked, ignoring his own mostly full plate. The meal of the day was some sort of linguini pasta and sauce that they’d barely had time to touch yet.

“I’m fine. We can head out if you’re done .”

“Seems like a waste.” He allowed an admonishing tone to bleed into his voice, and she picked it up immediately, resettling.

“I can finish. Sorry, I won’t keep you long.”

“I don’t know…” Clint offered, causing her to pause again. “You don’t seem to be doing the meal justice.” He ignored the fact that the dish in question was the epitome of mass-production, far from cultured cuisine.

He pulled her own tray toward him and carefully plucked out one of the strings of linguini, twisting it around his fingers until the length of it wrapped his thumb and forefinger together. He could see the moment she realized what he was telling her to do, and he wondered if she’d hesitate against the humiliation.

He should have known better.

She half-stood up to lean across the table and took his fingers into her mouth when he stretched out his hand to her. It triggered an adrenaline rush that overwhelmed Clint. To think that she would do it effortlessly, in public.

As he struggled with the new feeling of power she pushed her tongue between his fingers, running it up and down in an unmistakable fellatio motion.

“Fuck, Nat,” he laughed, half-admonishing, half-regretful. He pulled his fingers free and she carefully licked off the sauce he’d left on her lips. “I know I’m not helping, but that was...”

“What?” she asked. “I don’t think I know what you’re talking about.” She wasn’t even trying to be subtle, her arched eyebrows and pursed-lip smile declaring her ignorance a lie.

“Whatever.”

They’d drawn the attention of a handful of people in the room, who couldn’t have helped but notice the nature of the interaction. Clint was surprised to find that he didn’t give a shit.

***

“With or without permission?” Coulson asked. He was standing in front of his desk, leaning back to sit against it.

The question caught Clint off guard. “Well, I had assumed it would be with permission. She needs to get off the base, but it’s not going to do her any good to come back to lockdown.” He smiled wryly. “Especially since I’d be just as locked down.”

“I think you’re underestimating her.”

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. You’re not actually suggesting that I _sneak_ a SHIELD prisoner off a main base, just so she can get some fresh air and have a little fun?”

“Not at all.” Coulson turned the papers he was holding so Clint could read the title. It was a release form allowing a cooperative prisoner a supervised day pass. Pre-approved. “I just think your relationship would benefit from realizing that she probably could get the two of you both off and on base without raising any alarms.”

“Does that form even cover her?”

Coulson shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Call me if you have any trouble.”

***

She’d been following him through the hallways without comment, just tailing along behind in her distinctive silence. Until she noticed that there were at the exit. So much so that Clint was already handing over the paperwork to the appropriate guards.

“We’re on a mission?” she asked, clearly frustrated. “I’m not warmed up. Do you have the files? I’ll get caught up while we’re on the road, I promise.”

Clint grinned at her rant, which made her fall silent but seemed to increase her annoyance. “We’re not going out on a mission. I just thought you’d like some fresh air. As indicated by your question, you don’t get out for anything besides missions.” The first set of gates buzzed open and Clint drew her into the tunnel. “Besides, I haven’t been getting out that often either. If _I’m_ starting to get antsy, I know you have to be.”

“I’m okay.” But her murmur was belied by her increasingly eager steps down the tunnel. In fact, by the time they hit the last gate check, she was literally pressed against the links, willing them open.

“Do I get to drive?” she bounced. “I’m a better driver than you are.”

“You’re a better everything than I am, so that argument is worthless. So, no. I know where we’re going, anyway.”

“Where?”

“If I told you, you’d try and get me to let you drive again. Get in the passenger seat.” He clicked the car open, wincing at it’s obvious neglect. He really hadn’t been out off base in a long time. Damn, when had he become such cat lady? Only with guns and files, rather than the alternative.

Maybe she was good for him after all.

“Hey! Shoes off if you’re going to put your feet on the dash.” He worried for a moment that she’d recoil at the interjection, but she just smiled and toed off her shoes, leaning back the chair to stretch her legs out.

“Your wish is my commend.”

“Isn’t it, though.”

***

He’d parked them in some lot where no one would care about a car that didn’t move for several hours, and then began walking them down the sidewalk. The air was cooling in the setting sun, but she kept from wrapping her arms around herself for warmth. She wanted to feel _everything_.

There were people, fascinating people, walking up and down beside them. People with whole stories. Each one looked different, smelled different, _moved_ different. Even as she kept up her constant evaluate and dismiss rhetoric, she longed to know all their stories.

Maybe if she heard a thousand she’d forget her own.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?”

Cling pointed down the sidewalk, away from the setting sun. “That way.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, I was thinking about taking you back to my apartment, but I haven’t been there in months. It’d really just be a depressing waste of time. How about this instead? We walk that way, and see what we can find to do.”

“Rules?”

He laughed. “No rules. It’s just for fun.”

“Games have rules, and games are for fun.”

“All right. You make the rules then.”

She turned to loop her arm through his with a little hop-skip that made him smile at her. “It has to be free. But, by any means necessary. If we can make it free, it counts as free.”

“You trying to get us transferred back to SHIELD in handcuffs?” But he didn’t mean it, because neither of them would ever get caught.

“Second rule, if one of us suggests it, we have to do it. Can’t back down or chicken out.”

“Where do you come up with these? Agreed, but only on the condition that I have veto power for activities where we would cause more trouble than the night is worth.” She pivoted on the hinge their interlocked arms made so she could look right in his face. “No abusing my power of veto, I swear.”

She loved everything so much when he was pleased with her. Touching him, hanging on him, _teasing_ him. She must of done something particularly clever, for him to let her get away with so much. It made even the air taste changed.

She spared a moment to wish she could know what she’d done, to better repeat it, but that line of thinking was as pointless as wondering what she’d done wrong, in those times she failed and subsequently opened herself up to hell. There were just some things she’d never be smart enough to understand.

***

By the time the night around them began to quiet, they’d managed to get invited in to dinner by three different families, completely rearranged the furniture in a random apartment (including cleaning the kitchen), and broken into a convenience store and painted every single bar of soap in the place with clear nail polish, so as to make them utterly useless. All of them, of course, had been returned to their boxes, and no one would be the wiser for days.

There had been a few other little things along the way, but those were the ones that Clint would always remember. His favorite, the soap bars, Natasha had come up with, and the only disappointment was that he’d never get to see the customers’ reactions.

“Up there,” she said, pointing toward the top of the high class complex. The kind where Clint would never be able to afford a bottle of water, much less a penthouse suite.

“What about it?”

“It has a rooftop pool.”

Oh. Clint glanced down at his watch. It was late enough that their chances of getting caught were low enough that he decided to risk it. What was the worst that could happen anyway?

“Race you.” He took off across the grass toward the building, with her just a little behind. He had the first handholds, pulling himself up on the weird décor to get a hand on the second floor windowsill.

But she was still right behind him, and she didn’t appear to need handholds, filling up cracks with her fingers. She was moving quickly enough that she might as well have flown and saved him the embarrassment.

In the end, she beat him, but not by as much as Clint had figured. He took it as a personal pride, since he doubted she would have purposefully slowed herself down. Not after her upbringing. In fact, he doubted she was familiar with the concept of “letting someone win.”

She’d been right about the pool, though. Which was strange in and of itself, but he let it go. Natasha was already halfway across the cool concrete and was shedding clothes with an alarming rate.

Cold blue light reflected from the bottom of the water, keeping the area from complete darkness. The air was already cold against his dry skin, and he almost regretted this decision in the chill of the wind. But she’d said no chickening out, so damned if he wasn’t going for a swim.

He kept his eyes on getting his own clothes off while Natasha ditched her own. He waited until she had slide into the water before glanced up to make his own way in.

“You’ll regret those,” she nodded at his boxers. She, of course, had made no such allowances for modesty.

Clint could feel the decision, stretching out in two directions. On one hand, he could regret the choice, whatever form that would take, whether vetoing, or explaining the awkwardness of the situation, or even just keeping the layer of clothing. On the other hand, he could learned something from his ward and take _one_ day when he just didn’t give a shit.

He ditched the boxers and slid into the water.

She splashed around for a while, delighted at the glide. Childlike, again. Clint just leaned against the pool wall and watched her tire herself out. It took a long time, but eventually she bobbed up beside him, breathless and ecstatic.

“You like the water, then?”

“I love all its uses. It holds up and and drags down. It can be air or ice, revive or drown, still or torrent. Water is like people. Touch it and beware.”

“Aren’t you a damned poet.”

She took a breath and ducked beneath the water, swimming around him in lazy circles for well over a minute before she came back up with a gasp.

“I love the burn in my lungs.”

“Apparently. Don’t drown yourself; I’d have to carry you back. Or, could you see the headline? “Rough Russian Agent Found Floating in Pool and No One Including SHIELD Has Any Idea What the Fuck Is Going On.’ It’d be national news.”

She hummed, non-committal, blowing bubbles in the water.

“Seriously, though,” he added. “You really like the feel of it?”

“Drowning? In a way. It’s a battle, a success and a loss all at once. It’s a truth based on the moment, and whatever arbitrary goal you’ve set in your head. I like it the way I like the sting of leather, the ache of a long-held position, or a slap across the face. Carefully. The way one handles serpents.”

Clint stared up at the stars, trying not to let his imagination get away from him.

***

It was a few days after that when their undercover was announced. In truth, Clint had mostly known it was coming. He and Natasha had gotten far too caught up in whatever Pakistan/Guatemala shit was going down. It was inevitable that they’d be let in on it.

Which had all led to his current position, sprawled unprofessionally across three chairs in the conference room. Natasha was splayed out in similar fashion, mirror image. Their legs tangled together on the shared chair in the middle.

“You could at least pretend to be professionals,” Coulson sighed as he entered the room.

His gaze lingered on their intertwined legs, but his comment on professional behavior was the only one he made. He handed each of them a file.

Which was a first for Natasha since she’d arrived. Clint could see the eager way she gripped the plain manila. Shit. That would have been such an easy way to make her happy. Ten seconds at a copy machine.

He threw a grateful glance at Coulson as he opened his own file. A cover ID sat on the first page.

“Getting us out of the house?” He sat up to get a look at Natasha’s file. She obligingly turned it so he could see her own cover ID staring back at him. “What name you get?”

“Eva Serinov.”

“Russian. Nice. Easy, too.” He flashed her his own file. “Ikur Rebolledo.”

“You’ll have to brush up on your Castilian.”

“My Spanish is just fine, thank you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Every word out of your mouth screams ‘Argentinian.’”

“Ok, that’s fucked up creepy, because I originally learned it from an Argentinian carnie and there’s no way you knew that. You read that somewhere in some file.”

“It’s a very distinct linguistic variation. Anyone from the region could identify it, and we’re going to be in Guatemala, it looks like.” She flexed her foot so it rubbed against Clint’s ankle. “I’ll help you.”

“Lovely displays of team-building here,” Coulson interjected, “but if we could get back to the matter at hand?”

“Depends. Are you going to tell us why all the secrecy? This has been all SHIELD hush-hush for months. We got involved mostly by accident.”

“You got involved because of Natasha. We few who understand this overall mission have been keeping it as segregated as possible, within SHIELD.”

Clint paused to let that sink in. He swore when he understood.

“So you needed as outsider,” Natasha spoke up.

“Then you understand?” Coulson asked.

Clint turned a file page to find a photograph of Ximena stapled to a mission report. He turned another and found a similar photograph, but this time of Ximena’s lifeless body. His eyes narrowed. “It means we have a traitor within SHIELD. And you don’t know who it is. Someone orchestrating overseas events that are contrary to SHIELD’s interests.”

“Child trafficking,” Coulson confirmed.

Clint glanced at Natasha who looked smug in her previous accurate guess from weeks ago.

“Who killed her?” he asked Coulson, turning the file to indicate the photo of Ximena’s lifeless body.

“That’s the question. It was expertly done, and we’re not even sure how the perpetrator knew she was here. We’ve been keeping a tight lid on this from the get go.”

“She could have alerted him.” This from Natasha. When both Coulson and Clint looked at her in confusion, she continued. “If she knew she was coming here, then she could have been the one who alerted her executioner to her presence.”

“If she thought he was a friend, you mean?”

Natasha nodded, and Clint turned to Coulson. “So what does this have to do with Guatemala and all the shit we went through there?”

Coulson settled back to lean against the table, still facing Clint and Natasha. “The answer to that actually begins a while back. Several years ago, there was a small child trafficking ring located in northern India. Small shipments, not ever really on SHIELD’s radar. Then, suddenly, it began growing in massive expansions. They started shipping the children up through the Pakistani border, so that’s inter-country cooperation. From there they distributed into eastern and then western Europe. Some of the victims even made it all the way to the States. Beyond that, their victim pool expanded. They’re started by taking young kids from parents, usually by lying and saying the kids would be better off-”

“They’d get an education,” Natasha interrupted. “They’d eat every day. That it was a fad in America to adopt from overseas. Children are in high demand. They’ll lead better lives. You’ll be able to better care for you other children. I’m familiar with the rhetoric.”

“Exactly. But this began to escalate. Slowly at first, but soon it wasn’t just kids, and it wasn’t by manipulation. That’s how we found them, in the end. A little too much violence in the wrong place and we had an in. Took down the ring in a few weeks. Flawless.”

“Except?” Clint prompted.

“Except we missed someone. Whoever the guy was that came in and took the ring from small time to international. He’d seen the whole thing going south and cut all ties. And he did so brutally. Not a single living witness was located who was willing to name him. Or even describe him. Our ghost.”

“And you think SHIELD accidentally hired him?”

“We’ve done stupider things.”

“What’s your evidence?” Natasha asked.

“Well, we noticed a similar pattern cropping up a few years ago, using the same old tracks, minus the violence. Manipulations and lies getting kids out of the country. Except there’s a huge number of these shipments showing up in the United States. Which is how you two met, actually.”

Clint shot a death glare at Coulson for bringing the subject up, but Natasha was smiling nostalgically.

“Anyway, we soon located a secondary base of operations in Guatemala. The constant exploitation of the indigenous people there made an easy foothold. Unfortunately, this group is being run even more tightly than before. It seems our target has learned from his mistakes. No one we’ve taken has been able to identify him. Worse, the organization doesn’t seem to be degenerating. We don’t have an in. Ximena’s execution was our first lead, and nothing came of it.”

“Is this why we were attacked in Guatemala?”

“Almost guaranteed. It’s probably the reason for your attack in India, too. He’s been sabotaging our missions for the last few months, so he’s finally on to us. All base personnel are being monitored closely, but nothing is coming from that either.”

“What’s the goal for us in Guatemala this time around? Will we be working with Kaylie? I assume this is why she’s been in Central America for so long?”

“It is, but you’re going to be on a separate mission from her. She’s working directly with law enforcement, all above the board. You’re going to be making a play at the inner ranks.”

“Thus Nat’s ID as the abused Russian mail-order bride. Fit in.”

“Exactly.” Coulson looked them over. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“I doubt it,” Natasha smirked. Although Clint didn’t share her easy lack of concern, he also didn’t anticipate as many problems as he would have a month ago. He settled for a shrug.

Coulson looked like he was going to press the issue, but decided against it.

***

SHIELD had the entry planned through every detail. A previously planted agent got them an intro to a previously bribed not-agent who had gotten them the in. Natasha was clearly reveling in the overly complicated chain of events. She’d spent most of the flight over suggesting strategy improvement to their entry-coordinator, who had done his best to not look pissed.

All of which meant that they were gearing up for first entry. Mentally speaking. It wasn’t like they’d be allowed to bring any weapons into an employee interview of this particular nature.

Clint came up behind her to wrap his arms around her, deeply startled when she jerked away.

“Don’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t. Everything we are is already so different than how I first learned it. It’s changed so much and I need to sink away from that in my head. I can’t feel safe with you in that room. My every movement has to embody obsequious fear. And I’m just not anymore.”

“You’re not afraid of me anymore?” He raised his eyebrows in obvious disbelief. He still felt her writhe beneath his hands at the slightest manifestation of his displeasure.

“Not like that,” she maintained. “Obsequious, maybe. Fear, maybe. But together?” She shrugged.

“I’ll believe it when I my reprimands don’t bring you to your knees.”

“Well, they’ll be doing that for some time yet. As long as we’re here anyway, because we have a cover to maintain. Are you going to help me? Push me down?”

Clint shifted uncomfortably. “I feel this is something you should have brought up before we’d actually deployed here.”

“Wouldn’t have changed anything. Are you going to help me or not?”

“Will it hurt?”

“Hopefully.”

“That’s not what I meant. I know you like…I know. I meant, will it hurt us?”

“Oh, pet,” she sighed. “If it finally gets you to expand your comfort zone and learn a few tricks of the trade, this will do nothing but help.” She waited in silence while Clint considered it, then took a step forward, opening her mouth to speak again.

Before she could make a sound, Clint had her by the throat, thumb and finger carefully placed under her jaw at her carotid arteries.

“I don’t think that you currently have permission to speak to me.”

There was the flash of a grateful smile, before her mind sank deep.

***

She was, as they’d said a thousand times, flawless. Every time he thought he understood all the different girls she made from her cover ideas, there was a new one.

_How does she hold these all in her head?_

For example, this particular type of submission, was different than her usual submission to him. Her usual submission had a personality which just happened to kneel at his feet. _This_ girl, Eva, had a personality that was nothing but kneeling at his feet. Literally, actually. She was just sitting there, seemingly afraid to even touch him.

Which everyone else in the room was getting a kick out of. The large goon-squad that made up the bodyguards of one Marc Ortiz, the presumable head of the Guatemalan division of the trafficking ring. While there was some speculation that he was the top of the food chain, most evidence pointed to someone behind him pulling the strings.

Either way, Clint had him marked for dead just for the way he was eyeing Natasha, much less the generic atrocities against humanity that the man had accrued. Even during Clint’s lengthy and detailed explanation about his cover ID’s shipping industry and the human cargo that could be moved with it, Ortiz just kept staring at Natasha.

“My people will look into it,” he finally said. “And if it is as you say, then I don’t see why you and I shouldn’t come to a healthy arrangement.”

Clint bowed his head in acquiescence, fighting to keep his mind from slipping out of the Castilian Spanish he had worked so hard on, and into the more natural South American dialect Ortiz was using. It would be such a stupid way to blow his cover.

“I agree, sir. I eagerly look forward to the mutually beneficial business arrangement.” Whatever resources the man had, Clint’s cover would hold. SHIELD had used an actual shipping business, rather than creating one out of thin air. With a traitor in their midst, it was better to play it safe.

“Does she perform?” Ortiz asked, nodding toward Natasha. Clint felt the cold seep of adrenaline through his stomach, even as Natasha sat up straighter in response. Or, rather, Eva Serinov sat up straighter.

“No.”

“Come now. Surely there’s something I could do to persuade you,” Ortiz purred. “I have extremely variable methods of repayment. Surely one them would catch your eye.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’ll even leave the script to you. I’ll be hands off. A non-participatory partner.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I appreciate such a great man’s approval of my choice, by most of my girls are shared often enough as it is. I have to keep something for myself. Otherwise, a man goes crazy.”

Ortiz was still eyeing Natasha, and Clint had no idea what he’d do if the issue was pressed. Either choice ran a large risk. It didn’t help that Natasha would suck him off on command, or do anything else, and probably never come to blame him for the decision.

However, Ortiz finally nodded once, and flicked his wrist to dismiss them. Clint wasted no time in taking the out.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for non-con discussions/elements and attempted assault. Also, TW for breath play, I think. Near-drowning? Idk. Just…don’t try this at home, guys. Ok?

Once they were back in their hotel room, Clint gently ran his fingers through Natasha’s hair.

“You in there, Natasha? I don’t much enjoy Eva’s cowering. I prefer your verbal reprisals when my fingers dig deep enough to bruise.”

“I can’t,” she gasped. “I need to come out slowly.” She pulled against his hand, trying to make his grip on her tighten enough to pull at the roots of her hair. Instead, he followed her, keeping the strands slack.

“I know. I’ve read enough to know that. I’m going to bring you somewhere else. Not out, really, but we’re definitely going somewhere. You want to submit, fine. But you’re doing it to _me_ , not some shitty cover ID.”

She was already calming, eyes wide and trusting. He let go of her hair and pointed to the table.

“Handcuffs,” he ordered, and she quickly picked them up from where they lay, an excited smile playing at her lips.

“Both on my wrists or onto something?”

“Maybe another time for the latter. Just on your wrists, for now.” He waited to see how tightly she put them on, guessing that she would let them cut into her own skin. When he saw he was right, he clenched his teeth. A few quick strides and sharp movements, and he had them at a more reasonable circumference. Not that they wouldn’t still dig into her skin, but there was enough leeway.

“Negates the point of ordering you to do it, if I have to do it again myself afterward.”

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“I’m about to give you more than enough reckoning to make up for it.”

She smiled for moment with a little half-laugh through her nose, then let it fade away, replaced by a moment of genuine fear. But then it returned, more gratitude than enjoyment, and Clint shoved her gently away from him.

“Go into the bathroom.”

After she’d complied, Clint took a couple of turns around the room, breathing carefully and playing through his plan in his mind. He was about to cross some pretty significant lines, all across the board, and he didn’t want to screw it up.

When he’d finished mentally preparing himself, he went in to join her. She was staring at the bathtub, stained with rings from a thousand lives come before them. Clint had filled it prior to their “interview”, while she’d been down securing their ride to the meeting. The water pooled carefully up the the brim, still and clear.

“Well? Get in.”

He imagined a moment of hesitation, but then she was calf deep in the water, and gentle sloshing spilled out onto the floor.

“All the way.”

She sat down, clenching her teeth against the sudden chill, and more water hit the floor. Clint knelt in the puddle, feeling the damp spread up his knees and down his shins.

“Entwine your fingers. Hold your hands against your chest like a prayer.”

She wasn’t looking at him as she obeyed, focusing straight ahead instead, and her breathing was quick and shallow. He leaned over and immersed his own arm in the water.

She jumped at the gentle buzzing noise, that he’d personally tested multiple times. It was one thing when packaging said ‘waterproof’ and a whole lot of shit if it wasn’t for real.

“Your safeword for the activity. Heaven knows you won’t be able to speak much. Hit it if you’re legit about to drown.” He thought for a moment. “Or if you just want to stop, obviously.” Even though there was never an _obviously_ when it came to Natasha.

He pushed the buzzer into her hand and, as she obligingly adjusted her grip onto it, he pulled the blindfold out of his back pocket.

Now she was watching him, no longer able to manage staring at the water-stained faucet in front of her. Clint moved slowly, trying to give her time to flinch away or even safeword out.

She was so still that even the water began to quiet. So he slipped the blindfold over her eyes. It pushed down against her hair, misshaping it against her head, covering most of her upper face. Clint adjusted the soft leather straps until he was confident it would stay in place.

“Yes?” he asked softly, face right up against her ear.

“Yes.”

“There’s no one else quite like you out there.” Not a question, just praise.

She literally arched her back at the comment, and the water moved again, pulling at her clothes. It had already seeped its way up most of her shirt, and it clung in a way that made Clint want to climb in on top of her.

 _In a moment,_ he chided himself.

Then he put one hand on her forehead and the other on her shoulder. “Deep breath,” he laughed gently, and pushed her back under the water.

She was very still, conserving air, but Clint knew her lungs. He heard them on a regular basis when she pushed herself training. He’d felt her breaths against his face. So he waited until he knew even her body was pushing near its limits, and then brought her back up. Her gasps echoed in the tiled room.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Cold.” Her lips curved up with the taste of her impudent answer. Asking for more.

“And with that, you’ve forfeited you’re right to speak ,” he responded, covering her mouth with one hand to push her back down again.

He didn’t hold her there quite as long, given how her chest had been heaving the last time, but it was long enough that she jerked involuntarily against his hands. He held her down harder at that, counted to ten, and then pulled her up.

This time she tilted her head upward in her deep gasps, trying to make sure the water was cleared from her access to air.

He didn’t give her more than a few seconds, before she was back down again. He could feel her fingers grasping at his own. He didn’t know whether it was involuntary or a plea, but the small device was still securely between her palms.

He didn’t leave her under long at all that third time, since it was more a power play than anything else. When he let her up, she spat water out of her mouth, blowing out hard so she could gasp in more air.

“Feeling anything besides cold?”

She nodded, with her face turned downward now. Her hair hung around her face, looped half-in and half-out of the straps of the blindfold. The movement had spilled more of the water out of the tub, and Clint splashed in it every time he readjusted his position.

Once she’d calmed down, he pushed her back again, but this time he also took a deep breath, and leaned over to submerge his face in the water above hers. He kissed her forehead gently, paused, and then kissed it again. He began moving his way down her face. Each eye, and then down her cheek. He stopped just short of her mouth and came back up for air himself, taking her back up with him.

He let go of her and let her sit still, shivering and hunched in over herself. While she recovered, he stood up slowly, knowing she would sense his movements even in her current state, and stepped into the water himself, one foot carefully placed on either side of her knees. He smiled to himself at the thought of how upset the hotel would be if they knew of all the safety guidelines being broken.

He settled in on top of her, knees braced roughly again the porcelain to keep himself from sinking down with his whole weight on her. He pushed his lips against hers in a slow, though ungentle, kiss. He breathed in deeply through his nose, and she mimicked the action as he pushed her back with the weight of his own body, and they both went under.

He broke off the kiss soon afterward, pulling away to watch her submerged beneath him, and then he took a deep breath and bent down under the water again. When he reached her mouth, her pushed against her hard, forcing her own open. When she complied, he carefully adjusted their lips into a seal, and breathed his own air into her.

He could feel her body reacting underneath him, and he knew his own was reacting as well. He’d long ago grown hard, and he thrust involuntarily at her, seeking friction within the wet fabric and swirling water.

When she felt him against her she reached to fumble with his buckle, struggling to undo the clasp in the chaos of rushing water and handcuffed movements. He almost lost his balance as one of his knees slipped out from the pressure, and he fell forward, more in their kiss.

He pulled himself out to the surface quickly enough that water rushed into her mouth, and when he jerked her up to join him, she was coughing. Clint tangled his hands in her hair, twisting roughly.

“You can touch me where and when I say you can touch me. Otherwise, you do not have permission.”

Her whole body spasmed with each cough, but she managed to nod her head. She was shivering, and Clint was getting goose bumps of his own. He rolled his eyes all the more at her previous comment about the cold. Maybe warm water in the future, if they ever tried this again.

When her coughing had subsided, he pulled her back into the water by her hair, waited and then pulled back up again. He played that game for a while, down and then back up. Each time got her a little closer to breathless, as she couldn’t quite catch up. Each dunk left her gasping a little harder, until she was coughing and spitting out water again.

He left her out of the water then, but immediately pushed his mouth to move against hers. He could feel her struggling to keep from coughing, holding it within her chest. Not a kiss of life, here above water, but just as desperate.

When she’d gotten ahold of herself, he took her backward, keeping the kiss locked so they went under together once again. The taste of each other mixed with the taste of the water. Literally breathless. He came up for air, forcing her to remain under the water, and then re-submerged to rejoin the kiss.

As the time drew on, she suddenly thrashed against him, a struggle to rise, quickly quieted again by her own volition. Clint kept the kiss going, and she stilled and kissed back, sucking his tongue into her mouth against the swirl of the water. He pulled away and nipped at her lip.

Dizzied, he sat up again, greedy for oxygen. He hesitated, for just a moment, trying to decide if he was going to let her up to breath, or make her endure one more kiss.

It was a moment of hesitation too long. Her body bucked suddenly under his hands where they pushed against her stomach and shoulder. He could see her mouth wide open through the water, and her arms had unfolded from her chest to clutch at the sides of the tub.

She was coughing in water.

He was moving the moment he realized what was happening, struggling to stand on the traction-less surface and pull her out at the same time. He nearly lost his footing and killed them both, but managed to get one hand on the edge of the tub before he hit his head on the same.

He rolled himself out of the water and over the lip of the tub as Natasha’s head broke the surface, and he used the momentum to pull her over the edge after him. Both of them hit the floor with cacophonous wet smacks, and choking coughs filled the room’s sound.

He floundered around on the floor for a few moments, trying to find where he’d placed the handcuff key, and quickly slid back across the floor when he managed to grasp it. He turned her from her back onto her side, and struggled to get the cuffs off, finally flinging them to slide across the floor, followed by the blindfold.

“That’s it, Natasha, keep coughing. Get it all out.” He was shaking, half from cold, but he forced himself to calm as she spit up water. It was a good sign.

Eventually, the spasms, rasping coughs, and dry heaving ceased, and the only noises were the steady drip of water set against Natasha breathing. It was still too quick, but it was clear.

“You want to tell me why the _fuck_ you didn’t want to use your safeword? I gave you that thing for a reason, and it wasn’t my own personal amusement.”

She struggled into sitting position, opening her hand to reveal the buzzer still sitting in her palm. She shrugged. “I didn’t feel the need. I liked how you kissed me.” She thought about it for a moment. “ _You_ liked how you kissed me.” She gestured forward to Clint’s now flagging erection, and he gritted his teeth.

“Was that what it was? You thought I was having too much _fun_ and so decided to ignore the rules?”

She leaned forward to press a quick kiss to his lips, though Clint rebelliously kept them still.

“I,” she announced. “Am always fun. And I recover quite nicely. Now, are you wound up enough that I’m finally going to be able to convince you to fuck me?”

“Not after _that_!”

She sighed. “As long as you realize it’s a matter of time.”

***

In retrospect, Clint should have anticipate the early morning wake up call. Ortiz hadn’t seemed like the kind of man to play by conventional standers. Both Natasha and Clint woke to the sound of the pre-entry, and had moments to decide their play.

“It’s Ortiz’s men,” Natasha confirmed, and Clint took her word for it.

“They don’t get to touch you,” he told her. “If it goes that way. Hopefully this is just a scare tactic.”

“I’ve let cover IDs be raped before. The mission-”

“Fuck the mission! They don’t get to touch you. Understand?”

“I understand.” Bitter and frustrated.

He took her harshly by the throat. “You understand, _what_?”

She shuddered deeply and her eyes lost their anger. “I understand, sir.”

Which was all the time they had before Ortiz’s men were through the door. The two of them feigned surprise, and fear, and any other emotion they figured normal people would have to such an event. Natasha babbled in Russian while Clint yelled something about “being treated like animals,” though he shut his mouth when he was told to.

In the end, they were both pushed to the floor on their knees. Not that Natasha stayed there, dropping down all the way to her stomach. She stayed there, stretched out prone, trembling in a way that made Clint wish he could shoot everyone in the room and pull her out of that headspace.

He refocused his attention at the clichély mustached goon in front of his face.

“Señor Ortiz wishes to test your impromptu capabilities. You will run a test shipment tonight.”

_Thank everything that SHIELD set up a real shipping industry._

“You should tell your boss that I’m more than capable of proving myself without being awoken in the night and dragged to the floor at gunpoint.”

Which was pretty much the last words he had a chance to say before he had a bag over his head and was being pulled into the streets. The action itself wasn’t so unnerving. It was nice to know that Ortiz was desperate enough to need him so quickly. This entire orchestration was only partially a scare-tactic. Mostly, it was a time-saver. By forcing “Ikur Rebolledo” to prove the reliability in the middle of the night with no time for preparation, Ortiz could skip a lot of the security steps. However, it wasn’t a guarantee that “Rebolledo” wasn’t a very well backed liar, which is why he’d only make the move if he was desperate.

Unfortunately for Ortiz, “well backed liar” was exactly what Clint was. He allowed himself to smirk under the hood. Everything was playing out perfectly.

At least, that was what he thought until the hood was ripped off his face. A preliminary glance around revealed he was on “his” boat, again on his knees. It would be a matter of minutes to cast off, and a matter of hours to prove himself to Ortiz.

Unfortunately. his secondary glance around revealed that Natasha was nowhere to be seen, and his heart skittered. Mentally, he flipped through possible options like a damn computer. She could be dead, tossed out of the car by the side of the road during their journey and he hadn’t even noticed.

But then, that was impossible. Not just because the idea of someone being able to silently shank Natasha in an enclosed vehicle was literally laughable, but because if she’d breathed her last 4 feet from him he would have _known_.

Which meant that she was most likely back at the apartment, or a secondary location, being held by more of Ortiz’s goons. Or Ortiz himself.

_Fuck everything. If that’s so, then there’s no way they’re leaving her alone._

Knowing the situation was out of his hands, he tried to refocus, but he was working on autopilot, repeating “she can take care of herself” over and over as if it would make the whole situation less concerning. Because yes, Natasha could take care of herself. Whether or not she _would_ was another matter entirely.

This was why his trainers had drilled into him the importance of proficiency. He’d practiced all the skills he’d need to get this particular boat launched and out of the harbor, sufficiently undetected, that his personal distraction didn’t matter much.

Not that that made his self-torture any less painful. He’d created a hundred nightmarish scenarios, each less likely than the last, by the time he was out into clear waters.

“You want me to take you all the way to Miami? It’s a 36 hour trip as we stand. Or we could make a layover in Havana? That’s only 26 hours.”

“Fucking shut up and turn us around.”

Clint did so willingly, more than happy to have passed the test and to head back toward Natasha. He wasn’t sure exactly how long it had been, but pretty much any amount of time was enough to allow something horrible to have happened.

Just as he was settling himself into the journey back, the phone he’d had confiscated from him buzzed. He glanced over his shoulder at whatever-his-name was, who was holding it.

“You gonna let me know what it says?”

The goon rolled his eyes and, for a moment, Clint thought he’d have to throw a fit about the whole thing. And throw a fit is exactly what he’d have to do, since the only people with that number were SHIELD.

But the man flipped the 90s-esque phone open and read out-loud, “I gave the Juarez Saturday off. Don’t freak out when he’s not there.”

Clint tried to keep the shock off his face when he heard the code sequence.

_Well, doesn’t that just change everything about our current priorities._

***

She’d been two people before. It wasn’t like the sensation in and of itself was something new. Not on paper anyway. But somehow, she couldn’t deny that there was some new element to this dichotomous sensation.

There were hands on her thighs, tugging persistently at her clothing. Waistband, skin, hair. She floated somewhere outside “Eva Serinov,” making sure that things didn’t cross into a different kind of danger territory.

“I hafta know, girl, do you taste as good as you look?”

She swore to herself. If she could actually hear what they were saying to her body then she was dangerously close to sinking out and falling into conscious understanding of the situation. And she had no idea what would happen then.

What was so _different_ about this time? She could see both decisions. Let them have their fun and keep her cover ID intact, or obey Hawkeye’s order and risk his life. It wasn’t a difficult decision. She could handle his wrath a thousand times better than his death.

So _why_ was it so damn difficult to stay sunk under? Why was her consciousness clinging to the surface of reality?

The answer was pushing its way into realization and she struggled with it for a moment. Whatever it was, it frightened her because she knew it was going to change something about how she saw the world. But the struggle was useless and suddenly she understood.

She didn’t want this.

 _She_ didn’t want this.

She didn’t _want_ this.

For a sharp moment, she was the one in control of her own will, and the ferocity of the deep breath was so clear that it hurt and flayed and tasted so good all at the same time that she let it take her.

She snapped the neck of the man on top of her, hands fumbling at the skin underneath her unzipped jeans. He died inches away from his goal and with a “O” of surprise on his face.

The rest of the men in the room were not so fortunate. They both felt the fear of her unfollowable attack and the bite of the knives she’d filched off her first victim.

***

Clint had to constantly remind himself in a string of rhetoric that he could not afford to run ahead of his guards to check on the status of the girl he was charged to protect. Just because he’d passed Ortiz’s little test didn’t mean that this was all over. Neither did that text message.

He forced himself to accept the fact that pretty much no matter what had happened, there was going to be fallout.

Yet even that knowledge didn’t prepare him for the shock-factor that accompanied his entry into the front room. Natasha herself was standing still, arms by her side and her back to the group. Drying blood covered her in rivulets, down her thighs and arms, staining the white fabric of her shirt and disappearing in the dark of her jeans.

The bodies on the floor matched her in her crimsons, various weapons strewn across the room or clutched in hands that had been too frightened or untrained to save their own lives. Ortiz himself was near the edge of the circle of bodies, though he appeared to have died with a sudden twist to his neck, rather than the rending wounds sustained by the rest of the group.

In the half-second it took Clint to evaluate the situation, Natasha’s head tilted back slightly. As if she were looking up at the ceiling. But Clint knew that the slight change meant that she could see the new group out of the corner of her eye.

No one moved for more time that was probably appropriate for a group of trained professionals, and then everyone moved at once.

The thing about Natasha, Clint realized, was that Coulson had been right. The senior agent had mention on more than one occasion that he thought Clint underestimated Natasha. Which had been absurd to Clint at the time, given how highly he regarded her skills.

One day he would learn to stop assuming he knew more than Coulson.

It shouldn’t have been possible to make it from a standing position, from facing the _wrong way_ , all the way across the room in less than the time it took for four armed guards to get guns out of holsters and into the air. She did it anyway.

Clint did managed to turn and get his arms around one of the guys, keeping the gun pointed at the floor, but the rest of it was all on her. Like a whirlwind, he felt her moving around him. Fire that burnt everything out of its path. Even his own target was suddenly dead under his hands and everyone was just as bathed in sprays blood as she was.

Wasn’t there an old story about how one could only be redeemed in blood? A living baptism.

Then it was just the two of them standing, and Clint was left with the feeling that he should have been swept away in her fire. Flame does not distinguish between friend and foe. Even its smoke blackens everything that doesn’t bow before it.

She was standing still again, knives held loosely in either hand, when he managed to choke out her name.

She startled at it, and turned to look first at him, and then at the blood on his clothes and her hands and pretty much everywhere else. Slit carotids and pierced aortas stained even the concrete floor beneath them.

“It is bad?”

“What?” Clint couldn’t even begin to guess what she meant by the question.

“That I killed them? They had their hands all over me and I just…came back to myself too hard.”

Clint took the half-step needed to bring him to her and took her face in his hands to press their foreheads together.

“I have never been so happy to see someone lose control in my entire life.”

“I ruined the mission. Cover IDs blown and SHIELD’s hand revealed, and I killed Ortiz, and he was our in to the rest-”

Clint was shaking his head against her. When she cut herself off in response, he pulled out the phone he’d gotten back. Flipping it open he held out the code message.

Her eyes widened as she read it through. “They got him?”

“Apparently.” He hit a few buttons and she jumped slightly at the ringing noise from the speaker. When he raised the phone to his ear, he reached out the other hand to hold onto her sleeve, tightening it against her. She relaxed in the sensation.

‘Hey, base? This is Hawkeye checking in with Black Widow. Message received and we’re gonna need an extraction.” He took a look around. “And a clean-up crew. Things got a little hairy when we tried to make our exit.”

“Any injuries?”

Clint grinned when he heard Coulson’s voice. “No, sir.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“You mind telling me what happened?”

“Our target heard there was a SHIELD team infiltrating Ortiz’s operation and tried to make emergency contact. He ended up walking straight into our trap. We’ve got him in holding now. Your extraction is on its way, so send out your coordinates.”

“Yes, sir. One more question, if you don’t mind. Who was it?”

Natasha could see Clint’s eyebrows raise when he heard the name, and then he hung up.

“Someone we know?” she asked.

“You figured it out months ago, we just didn’t put it together. It was Josh Carver. One of the guys you were blackmailing. The one with a history to hide in Pakistan. And I'm the one who told you to leave him alone. Fuck me!”

She shrugged. “It turned out all right.” Then she snapped her mouth shut, as if realizing Clint might not think so at all.

“Natasha. I told you already. I’ve never been so happy to be covered in someone else’s blood in my entire life.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for on-screen self-harm.

What was weird about the whole thing was their return. Even though the entire adventure had taken a little less than three days, they’d both crossed new lines. Being thrown back into the structured life of the SHIELD base turned out to be more difficult than expected.

Their relationship toward each other had changed, and Clint was beginning to face the reality that he probably wouldn’t be allowed to remain her handler if the developing nature of their relationship got out.

Some lab tech, who had totally deserved it when Clint punched him in the face, had straight up asked, “Are you fucking her?” like it was some under-the-table side-deal Clint had going.

Which put two different options in front of him, neither of which he liked very much. He couldn’t even figure out how to bring up the subject with Natasha. Or Coulson. And he’d pretty much decided that he was done with Dr. Allen. She’d turned out to be remarkably unhelpful.

But really the whole thing was inevitable. Because if he didn’t redefine their relationship soon, it was going to redefine itself. He’d started doing stupid little things that crossed all the lines except the official ones. For example, today, he’d moved their work-out time into the middle of the afternoon, just so he could come back and watch her get in the shower.

And she knew it, too. He wasn’t fooling anybody in that room, and he could tell it by the smile on her lips, her half-lidded eyes, and the way she slinked out of her clothes one layer at a time, like a damn strip-tease.

First her fingers played at her midriff, tucking under, rather than actually lifting, her tank top. She ran her fingers under the waistband of her shorts, pushing the skin down to further outline the hipbones peeking out at him. Skin depressed and then released as she moved on to hook her fingers under the shirt fabric. She pulled it slowly off herself, cocking her hips to one side so she stood with exaggerated curves. Pale skin against black contrast, all tinted with the blue of her veins.

The final reveal of her sports bra was frustrating to the point of torture. Especially since she left it alone and moved back to her waistline. She smirked when Clint made a noise of frustration. Her eyes trailed pointedly to his cock, which wasn’t even trying to be subtle.

Clint closed his eyes, rolling them to the ceiling, trying to remind himself once again that he had decided to wait until she was no longer officially under his charge. At least, according to SHIELD. It was the best solution he’d come up with.

By the time he opened them again she was down to black regulation underwear and the sports bra. Which she was playing with, watching him watch her.

“You look far too pleased with yourself.”

In answer, she spun on one heel to give him a back view, running her hands down from the small of her back to her mid-thighs.

“You want to wipe the smirk off my face?”

The sudden mental image of her pale skin fading into a dark red, a whole different type of contrast, made him twitch against his pants and he actually physically whined.

She pulled the sports bra up over her head, letting it fall to the ground, but maintained her position facing away from him. Clint gritted his teeth and reminded himself that patience was a virtue, while bending a girl over a desk without so much as a warning probably wasn’t.

A reminder which almost went to hell when she hooked her thumbs beneath her undergarment and slid them down to her thighs. Not all the way off, just to her mid-thighs, with her spread legs holding them taunt and stretched. She carefully folded her arms behind her back, and tilted her face up so that her bright red hair tumbled down between her shoulders.

Perfect for digging his fingers into to better hold her still with.

Clint buried his face in his pillow and screamed. Long and loud so that it hurt his throat, and until his lungs ran out of air. When he stopped he heard her laughing.

“It’s a matter of time,” she literally sang at him, as she turned the water on.

***

It was two days after her little strip-tease when he sat her down, serious look on her face, and said he had something to tell her.

She was ready to triumph, honestly. She’d seen his resolve weakening and thought that this had to be it. She could see his lips struggling to try and find the right words, and assumed he was adorably shy about asking for some certain position or other particular request.

Which made the actually topic of conversation that much more of a disappointment.

“I think that it’s best if I take the night off. Spend it at my apartment in town. If they haven’t sold it out from under me, yet.”

His lips turned up to tell her the selling thing was a joke, but she couldn’t bring herself to laugh. He wanted to spend the night away from her? When it wasn’t required by mission? She’d thought they’d long ago stopped playing the games where he didn’t tell her how she’d sinned before he punished her.

“Ok, I can see you’re freaking out about that, so let me be the first to reassure that it’s not because you’re in trouble. I just need some time to think.”

“I can be quiet.”

A little huff of air that was too short for her to tell whether it was amusement or annoyance. “I know. But, if you’re in the room with me these days, then you’re a distraction.”

This was because of the games she’d been playing? But that wasn’t supposed to have actually been a fight against his will. Rather, a logical proof of his own needs.

“It wasn’t a challenge of your authority.” It slipped between her lips before she could stop it, and she physically covered her mouth with her hand. How dare she tell him what her actions where and where not? If he wasn’t mad at her before, he would be now.

But his hands ran slow lines up and down her thighs, bringing her down a little. She wished he’d dig in deeper, leave bruises, bring her back to reality all the more. However, she knew he wouldn’t. Not when he was at least trying to have a real conversation with her.

“I know. I told you, this isn’t a punishment. It’s not so much because of something you did, but because of something…well, because of something we’re going to do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know that you probably won’t understand. But I need some time to make sure I’m making the right decision. I want to draft a proposal and submit it to Coulson.”

“What kind of a proposal?”

“Um, don’t freak out, ok? I want to have you released from my care as a handler.”

Deep palpitations through her chest and into her head as she flipped through her options. Anything that would keep him bound to her. Whatever she needed to do.

“See now you’re freaking out. Let me explain. If you and I are going to do...this,” he gestured between the two of them and her eyes tracked the movement of his hand. “Then I’m not going to be comfortable with it unless you’re not officially under my command. It won’t solve all the problems, I know, but it’ll at least get rid of the court martial-able ones. And it’s not like you’d be transferred to another handler. Not, at least, while we’re not on missions.”

She was biting her lips together. A fact which she realized only because his eyes were trained on her mouth and he’d frowned. Subtle, but enough for her to release the punishing bite.

“I was thinking that we could work out our own understanding. Have our own…contract.” He stuttered over the word, but she was too near panic for it to be able to amuse her.

“Talk to me here, Natasha. I’m not leaving you, or abandoning you, and we’ll still work together for a long time yet. To you, it’s just paperwork. But to me, it’s important. Severing off an old part of your life before you can move onto a new one. Hopefully, a better one.”

His eyes were searching here, back and forth from one eye to the other, as if he were reading a book.

“Talk to me, Nat.”

The first noise the managed to make was just a hum. A low “mmmm” that she quickly pushed further into, “Mmmm seeing your point. I understand.”

It was all she could manage, and she could tell he wasn’t satisfied. His hand drifted down from her thighs to play at the sensitive stretch of skin behind her knees. They contemplated each other for a moment, and then he sighed heavily, and pulled away.

“I know it’s not the best arrangement, but I don’t think the ‘best’ arrangement exists.”

He didn’t seem to get that paperwork, while important in theory, was not enough of a concern to her to push her this far toward panic. She didn’t have the words to tell him that the idea of being left here alone, in the dark, was what was making her blink too fast and swallow too dry.

“Tonight,” she managed, but then stopped, unable to continue, much less communicate.

“Mm, yeah,” Clint responded, misunderstanding. “I’ll probably leave after dinner and be back after breakfast. I can have Dr. Holloway look in on you. Or I can check and see if Kaylie is back from the Guatemala wrap up.”

“I’m a better pet than to need checking in on.” And that sentence was too late. She had barely had a hope of communicating her fear of isolation when she hadn’t commented on it. After specifically reassuring him that she’d be all right, she’d didn’t even know how to begin to backtrack.

He nodded once, and then dragged the chair back over to the desk, returning to some leftover paperwork from her actions in Guatemala.

She couldn’t breathe.

***

Sighing heavily, he leaned back in his chair to look at Natasha. She was sitting on the bed, with her back to him, her legs bent in front of her. She was sitting very still, and her back was deeply arched so that she was hunching over one of her legs. He couldn’t tell what she was doing, though she was obviously intensely focused.

Curious, Clint stood up and walked to look over her shoulder at her task. What he saw, triggered a shock of anger. She had her fingers wrapped around the blade of one of the knives she always managed to keep on her, and she was writing deep Russian characters into her skin. The blood seeped around to run down on either side of her calf, with pooling already staining its way into the towel she had wadded beneath her. Even her fingers, where she clasped the blade, were dripping slow crimson from superficial cuts.

Clint reached out and ripped the knife from her hand, careful to pull outward to avoid damaging her fingers further. He flung the weapon across the room where it skittered along the concrete, stopping only when its tip dug into the far wall.

“What the fuck!” he seethed, doing nothing to quell his anger, even as she bent over to hide her face in the mattress.

Clint took her by the hair, tangling his fingers deep to keep the grip. He pulled back sharply, jerking her body back to unbend and forcing her to stare at the ceiling. Her eyes were wide.

Clint let her breathe for a moment, shallow breaths through parted lips, while she waited on him. Then he moved again suddenly, with quick efficiency. He pulled her head down so she was flat on her back, her legs still a bloody tangle in front of her. He climbed up to join her on the bed, kneeling on her left side and leaning heavily over her trembling body. He kept his left hand tangled in her hair and reached with his right to grip her bloodied calf. He dug his fingers into the slippery flesh to push into the gashes.

Natasha opened her mouth wider, but kept silent.

“Why?” Clint snapped.

“I just, I’m sorry. I needed the feel of it. I deserved…” He cut off the rest of the sentence by shaking her head sharply once.

“Don’t use that word, ‘deserve’ here.” His Russian was basic, but he knew more than enough to have understood the words. _Useless, helpless, bitch, empty_. “You are _not_ those words. You are not the sting of them against your skin.” He squeezed her leg harder, feeling the accompanying rush of bleeding. “Whose leg is this?” he asked her.

“I…what? I don’t understand.”

“I’ll start simpler then. Whose are _you_?”

“Yours. I’m all yours.”

“So whose leg is this?”

“Yours. It’s yours, I’m sorry. Please, I’m so sorry.”

Clint loosened his hold, now just running his fingers up and down the slits in flesh. “You’re mine. This is mine. How dare you touch my things. How dare you hurt my own. You do not have permission to rend yourself open. Not with a knife. Not with these words.” He kissed her forehead, sliding his hand up to wrap around her knee instead. “You are infinitely precious to me. A lost portion, now returned.”

She shook her head, and he narrowed his eyes at the silent dissent. Roughly, he moved to straddle her, letting his weight push down into her stomach.

“Don’t you _dare_ tell me what I think. What you are to me? Do you think I’m too stupid to understand myself? Am I so blind that I can’t see what you mean to me?”

“No! No, I-”

“Why don’t you say it out loud? Say, ‘you’re wrong’ and ‘you’re an idiot’ and ‘you don’t love me.’ Say it all out loud.” He paused watching her writhe beneath him. “No? You don’t seem to have a problem saying it with your fingers and your knives.”

“Why. Won’t. You. Fuck. Me.” It wasn’t even a question, but a breathily uttered despair. Her eyes were wide, blown open with lust or adrenaline or both. They were cavernous, echoing back with him in an empty darkness that was nothing but raw need.

All the deep anger melted away from him and his head sank low to rest his forehead against hers again.

“All right,” he whispered. A surrender. He’d held out against dark tortures from men with empty eyes, but _this_? He was rendered helpless. “All right.”

She took a slow deep breath of shock that he could feel stretching her skin from the bottom of her throat down past her stomach. She hooked her hands underneath the top of his thighs as he straddled her and pulled him against her, fingers digging hard enough to bruise. Russian fell from her lips as she thanked every Slavic god that mythology could offer her, one after the other.

Then her fingers were at his belt, and, shit, did she ever move fast. He didn’t know what else he’d expected, since she was ruthlessly efficient at everything she did.

She stripped off his pants and then even his boxers, leaving his erection to bob unceremoniously against the hem of his shirt. He spared a moment to think he shouldn’t be so aroused with so much blood around him, but he threw the thought away. Sometimes, blood just came with the territory.

He also hadn’t missed that she’d left his shirt on him, and the power-play that that left him. He considered leaving the garment on, but longed for her feel against him too much to let the thought play out. His shirt hit the floor, bloody handprints stained into the edges, and his socks followed behind.

He stayed there, towering over her where she lay on her back on the bed. Her eyes were focused on his face, more piercing there than they would have been if they’d roved his entire body. She was still clothed, and he ached to level the playing field.

When her fingers went to the hem of her own shorts, however, he objected.

“Mine.” A single-word claim that dropped her hands to her sides, her eyes intent and frighteningly aware. “Mine to touch.”

He tucked his own fingers in instead and slid the impediment carefully off while she helped him with the weight of her legs. Once the shorts had been discarded, he started with one hand on either side of the outside of her ankles, still kneeling between her legs, and slid his palms against her, moving up slowly. He felt the warmth of her skin, the indentation of her knees, and the shudder of her thighs.

When he got to her underwear, he hooked one thumb through each leg hole, starting from the top of her thighs and coming out the top of the waistline, clenching his hands so he gathered the fabric together in a small circle of his thumb and forefinger. He knew it would put pressure down between her own legs, and he was desperate to find her wet for him.

“Take care of your shirt.”

He kept his hands there, watching the fabric slide around as she shifted to get the top over her head. As soon as it was off, her body held in a half sit-up, she moved to pull off her bra to join it. She froze suddenly, looking at Clint to double-check the permission for the action.

Clint nodded silently, not trusting himself to speak. He could feel the softer skin at his fingers. He balanced more of his weight forward, knowing it would leave bruises where he pinned her skin between his knuckles and the protrusion of her hip bones.

And then she tossed the bra aside to land with the rest of their clothes, and he felt himself duck forward involuntarily. It was too much, with her face just beneath his, looking up from under her lashes, and then the sudden bareness before him. He leaned for her mouth, or her breasts, or just to touch their foreheads together, he really didn’t know.

He ended up pressing himself up against her, forcing them both back down to lie on the bed. The feel of her soft shape molding against his chest caught his breath and his hips jerked to rut him against her.

Which was when he noticed that he still had the last of her clothing clenched in a tight fist beneath him. He was pulling up so hard on the fabric that it must have been applying too much pressure to that sensitive area. He was already hurting her.

But then he felt the subtle change of angle and understood that she was grinding down against the sensation.

So maybe not.

He struggled to sit back up on his knees so he could get her properly undressed, and when she was bare before him he leaned down to kiss a worshipful line down her stomach toward the part of her thighs. It was the only natural thing to do with the body presented before him. She was worthy to be a bride to some ancient powerful god, and he couldn’t understand why she was here underneath him.

He moaned his bewilderment into her warmth as he reached her folds, and then ran his tongue down toward her entrance. For one painful moment, he was afraid he’d find her dry and tight. That her pretty huffs of breath and seeking twists were nothing more than a perfect performance. Something after which she’d saunter away, to think on the interaction with the smug indifference of a job well done and nothing more.

When the soak of slick touched his lips, he sucked his relief into her skin.

She pushed her legs further apart in the same moment that she said, “It’s not-” Hitched gasp. “This isn’t about me. Let me be-” She cut off with a small grunt when Clint pulled away completely.

He sat there for a moment, breathing heavy and mourning his own loss of friction against the sheets. He let her believe for a moment, that he was about to comply with her request. There was still blood on his hands and it was spreading. Even though the wounds themselves had slowed.

He could still make out the words, carved in a testimony from herself against herself. In a sudden, but controlled anger, he slapped the marks hard with his open palm, and her whole body winced. Blood flew in droplets as he reopened the wounds.

“You do _not_ get to tell me what I may and may not do with you. You do _not_ get to make requests. _I_ will make the calls, and _I_ will use whatever part of me that _I_ want to cater to whichever of us _I_ want.”

He could see her pupils blow wider, even from his distance.

Regardless of her positive reaction at the commands, he let his hand return to her leg, more gently this time. He applied steady pressure into the welling pools until the flow slowed again. Neither of them spoke as he let the seconds tick by, and he counted her breaths.

When he slowly released the tourniquet made of his own body, the blood was barely dripping. He wrapped it in the sheets, ruined already anyway, tight against the wounds.

Then he returned to her suddenly. He wrapped his hands around either leg so he could grasp at the crease at the top of her thigh, and this time he pulled her hips up to meet him as he bent over her.

He used the extra leverage to apply more pressure, sucking and licking. Exploring. He could see Natasha’s arms move suddenly, as if to reach and pull him harder against her. But she came back to herself quickly, and the hand just skittered across the bed until she lay with her arms stretched out wide on either side of her.

She trembled beneath him. Even her hands, curled into tight fists, shook.

He couldn’t anymore. With a last pull at her, he moved his way back up her body in a line of kisses. By the time he reached her face, she’d already hooked one leg up on his waist, the other one bent beside him.

“The better to leverage with?” he hummed against her in amusement, tapping the foot she had planted on the bed up by his waist.

She opened her mouth, whether to apologize or not he didn’t care, and he bit her bottom lip to stop her words. She fell obligingly quiet and opened her mouth.

“Can you taste you?” he murmured, and she hummed in response. Not just verbally, either. It was like her whole body was humming and his breaths were so quick and so shallow that he felt he’d burst with the _joy_ of it.

“Don’t be gentle,” she whispered, as he lined himself up against her.

“Don’t know if it’s in me right now,” he confessed, and pushed in.

Honestly, he almost tried to take it slow, but the soft slide was more than enough to have him buried all the way before he’d realized. If she was in any discomfort, it didn’t show on her face. Her eyes were tightly shut, but the smile on her lips was everything. She licked her lips suddenly, drawing the bottom one back into her mouth. To bite at it like Clint had.

He thrust again, hard, and she bit down harder. With his arms braced on either side, holding him above her, he could see so much of her responses.

“Thank you,” she whispered. And it was more relief than anything he’d ever given her before.

The next time, he thrust so hard she slid up on the sheets, and he didn’t give her time to recover, setting a deep punishing rhythm, using the rocking of his whole body to draw back and then thrust back into her.

It was a matter of a few seconds for her to find his pace, and she began to match it with the arch of her back, keeping herself from sliding again. She was also pushing up with the leg she had bent at her side, and he wondered how that could be anything for painful for her, since it bordered on too much for him.

Which was when he felt the trail of her fingers down his spine. A teasing extra sensation on top of it all. Her light nails traced an icy chill up and down his spine. Completely gentle and uniform. Almost lazy. A measured motion in so much control, lying in stark contrast to the panting creature beneath him. Precise, even in her undoing.

“Nat,” he said, or at least, he meant to say. It came out more, “Nng” as he came hard.

By the time his mind was back to anything close to working order, he was lying with his face in her neck, and he could feel her legs bent to hold him in place on either side. She was running her hands up and down his back.

“Tasha.”

“I’m here.”

He pulled back and out of her, unsteady on his knees. He kept one hand on her leg to keep his balance, and he reached to run his finger up between her legs with the other.

He was surprised, even in his satisfied haze, when she frowned and partially twisted away from him.

“Turnabout is fair play,” he said, but he didn’t continue because he figured that was probably as close to a request as he’d get from her. And she didn’t ask for things lightly. “Why?”

“It’s perfect like this.”

A long silence, and then Clint pulled his fingers back again. “All right. It’s totally your choice. But just so you know, this means I owe you at least double next time around.”

She raised her eyebrow in mock-doubt, and Clint snorted. “Don’t underestimate me.”

She smiled in silent response and slid partially over to make room for him to lie next to her. He moved to take the invitation.

“So…” he started, but then trailed into silence when she wrapped her arms around him and settled in like she did when it was lights-out through the barracks.

Clint kept his mouth shut and matched the pace of his breathing to hers. She was right. Some things were better left alone, perfect as they were.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW - watch out for the passing mention of the sexual abuse of a child. And angst. Like, so much angst. I just can’t let them be happy for two seconds, can I?

Getting approval for the actual release of Natasha from Clint’s care turned out to be only a minor inconvenience. The two of them sat through some crappy meetings, some crappy emotional evaluations, and some crappy debriefings. Then Clint had a final interview with Coulson who asked him a bunch of questions, almost all of which Clint answered truthfully.

The only time he actually lied was at the question “Have you any type of sexual intercourse with aforementioned Natalia Romanova?”

Clint said no, and Coulson glanced up at the syllable. Clint figured any handler worth his salt would have spotted that for the lie it was. He waited for the fallout, but then Coulson moved on. It wasn’t brought up again.

In the end, Natasha’s record spoke for her, and getting her released from her position as his ward was simple enough. What turned out to be a pain in the ass, was keeping anyone else from getting her in a similar manner.

“She’s not some used toy, to be pawned off because she’s unwanted,” Clint snapped at the committee. “I’m not handing her off, I’m setting her free.”

“Calm your tone, Barton, or your input will no longer be required at this meeting.”

Clint glanced at Natasha, who was folded gently into a chair at the table everyone was gathered around. He watched her calm breathing, echoing it, and forced himself into a more compliant tone of voice.

“You have to remember that she’s a person. And that she wants to be here.”

“So you say,” some grey suit answered. He put his hands up in a placating manner when Clint’s eyes flashed in anger. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but that’s exactly why this meeting is in effect. To determine if Ms. Romanova is fit to be on her own. To determine if we believe she’ll assist SHIELD of her own free will.”

Various points had already been presented, and Dr. Allen almost made all for the damage she’d done when she calmly informed the room that they’d “be either cowards or fools not to let the girl have her chance to impress them all.” There was also a lot of doctor-y talk in her presentation. Clint didn’t follow all of it, but it seemed to be saying that Natasha was rapidly gaining a free will and an independent mind. More rapidly than anticipated.

It all seemed to be going very well, but Clint ran his hands up and down his thighs in frustration. They still hadn’t discussed her obvious dependence on him, and how that would affect her missions or the chain of command. He pushed his hands harder into his thighs, longing to be able to dig into _her_ skin. Away from prying eyes and bureaucratic fail-safes.

He glanced across the table at her, but she wasn’t making eye contact this time. Instead, she was running her fingers in a ring, up and down the water bottle in front her her. The condensation slicked against her skin, as she ran her hand up and down, up and down.

Clint’s breath caught in his throat as he looked wildly around the table to see if any of the others in the room had noticed the obscene movement. No one else seemed to be paying her any mind.

He looked back again, following the lazy motion with his eyes, and guess that she just made it look natural enough that anyone else would think she was simply fidgeting. Playing with whatever was in front of her. Especially since her eyes were carefully trained on the current speaker.

Up and down, fingers fluttering tighter then wider as she worked her top to bottom and then back again. Clint crossed his legs, biting back a noise, knowing she’d see the movement.

Sure enough, she smiled carefully, still not looking at him. But he knew, and she knew. He narrowed his eyes. She’d pay for this one later.

The debate lagged on around them, and Clint fought to keep his eyes anywhere except her fingers. Eventually, one of the black suits turned to Natasha.

“All of this,” he said to her, “is, of course, dependent on what you make of it. There’s seems to be a general consensus that you’ll work very well with SHIELD, and that you’re recovering well from what was done to you. However, our current concerns lie in two places, and both of them have a lot to do with Agent Barton.”

Her hand had stopped moving, her entire attention now focused on the man speaking to her.

“Our main concern,” he continued, “is how your attachment is going to color your missions. First, because we don’t know if you can operate on your own, especially if you’re on a team without him. Second, because we’re concerned that orders from someone else will fall on deaf ears. So, convince me. What happens if we put you under a normal handler, rather than a 24/7 handler?”

As she opened her mouth, Clint fought the urge to answer for her, or to stand up yell “fire”, or even to create cue cards. Because he’d seen her confronted with the possibility of being forced to leave him, and she tended to react violently. Which wouldn’t go over here. The two of them had talked about it, but it didn’t mean she would behave.

His fears turned out to be unfounded. She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know that I can say for sure what would happen in the plethora of hypothetical circumstances you seem to be entertaining. Here’s what I know.” She sat up straighter and all eyes were on her. “I am thoroughly enjoying growing my own free will.”

That was not was Clint was expecting. Moreover, he suddenly realized that, while all eyes were on her, her eyes were on him. She wasn’t speaking to the rest of the room. Instead, the rest of the room was privy to their conversation.

“In fact, I don’t think I ever completely lost my will. Rather it was silenced. Now that it’s free, I don’t anticipate it again be so easily shut away. I don’t anticipate working well under another 24/7 handler. Not because I refuse, but because I think it would be a step backward for everyone.”

Which was just such a remarkably good answer that Clint wanted to stand up and praise her right there. Get her on her knees and card his fingers through her hair. Which was just not a profitable line of thinking right at the moment. He returned his attention to the room, although everyone seemed to agree that it had been a good answer.

“Addressing that blooming will, do you have a personal desire to remain with SHIELD, or would your independence take you elsewhere?”

She seemed surprised, and let it show on her face. “I have no plans of going elsewhere, and fully intend to stay with SHIELD.”

“And it’s safe to assume that this is because of one Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye, and his affiliation with this organization?”

It was a dangerous question. If she said yes, then they could counter with her “crippling” dependence. If she said no, they’d point out that she had no other reason for loyalty, making her too much of an unknown element.

But Clint wasn’t worried anymore. He sat back in his chair and watched her work. She leaned forward carefully, and Clint almost laughed out loud when half the room unconsciously copied the motion. She was a damn snake-charmer, and the whole world was made of pythons.

“My first handler,” she breathed, “held me down and fucked me, for the first time, when I was eight. Beyond that, he carved me into blood as a shadow of himself. I was burned and drowned and left alone with new nightmares every time he touched me. Sanity was not a luxury I was afforded. But shinning there, at the top of the circles of hell he created just for me, stands the fact that after two decades, I don’t even know his name.”

She shrugged and leaned back against her chair again.

“I can see you getting ready to ask me why that’s relevant, but please, bear with me for a moment. Agent Barton ripped me out of that world, even though I was unwilling to come at the time. He not only named himself, but he named me. And suddenly my world was identity and air, rather than fire and dark.

Now, you’re right in your subtle point that I have no personal reasons to affiliate with SHIELD other than Hawkeye. But _he_ ,” she jabbed her finger at him sharply, “was the first person I remember knowing who I could ever call ‘good.’ Hell, he’s the first person I remember who has given me the hope that I’ll one day be able to define the word. Why SHIELD? Because he’s the only moral compass I’ve got, and he calls this place good. So, unless I learn otherwise, I will continue by his paradigm.”

And then she was silent, as if the simple sentences weren’t dripping with so much weight that Clint was about to throw himself out of his chair again. It seemed to be a running theme for the afternoon.

Fortunately, the rest of the room seemed unperturbed by Natasha’s explanation. Some of them were actually nodding in approval. But then, they weren’t the ones who had just heard themselves as responsible for the entire moral compass of a broken girl. Clint had recently been feeling his burden of responsibility lightening, but it was back in full force.

“Continuing then, along the lines of your understandable loyalty to Agent Barton, do you think that you’d be able to follow someone else’s orders in the field.”

“I’ve been following orders my whole life. Not all of them came from my handler. I don’t see why it should be any different here.”

“What if you were given an order that made it impossible for you to protect him? Or what if you were given an order that contradicted what he wanted from you? Even if he didn’t say it out loud.”

She hesitated over that one, but then spoke slowly. “I cannot, with any believability, say that I would disobey Hawkeye, or put him in danger. However, I would also point out that, in my short time here, I have already observed that SHIELD is remarkably concerned with its _people_. You all depend on each other in a way I didn’t know a functional organization would allow. So, no. I cannot honestly say I would obey such an order. But can any of you honestly say there’s no one for whom you would not be similarly disobedient?”

***

It was the most honest he’d seen her, aside from the past instances when he’d taken her apart under his hands and tongue. He just hoped it would be enough. They had to wait an excruciating three days while who-knows-what went down throughout the vast decision-making tree of SHIELD.

When the news actually came, they didn’t immediately end up making a big deal out of it. It was a simple email that Clint got while the two of them were eating. Kailey, who was back from Central America, was across the table next to Natasha, and Kay was next to him. Natasha was directly across from him, and he smiled carefully as he handed her his phone.

He watched her read through the abbreviated welcoming of one Natasha Romanoff into the group known as the Agents of SHIELD. Then she smiled back at him, just as carefully, and he put the phone back in his pocket.

The conversation continued, but their feet touched under the table. They’d share the good news with their friends soon enough, but they meant to celebrate it between them first.

***

He almost didn’t have the patience to make it through the door. She was asking all sorts of practical questions such as, “how do I apply for an on-base room?” “do I have to have an off-base apartment?” “do I receive my missions like you do now?” and “can agents request handlers for missions, assuming I can’t have you?”

He mumbled some half-hearted answers while they made their way down the hall, but once they’d made it to just in front of his door, he suddenly answered into her neck.

He could literally feel her priorities changing beneath him, and it was luck that the door got opened at all, because he was done waiting, and he wanted to _taste_ her. He shoved roughly, angling her toward the bed, as soon as he was secure in their privacy. He felt a flutter of anticipation when she started to strip before he ordered it.

In contrast, he decided kept his own uniform on. She had had her moment last time. Which suddenly reminded him of the debt he owed her.

_Well, I intended to start with my mouth anyway._

Which was when he realized that she was giving him a fucking striptease again, and he was whole-heartedly not in the mood.

“I don’t think so,” he growled, and shoved her hard to land sitting on the edge of the bed. “You have the time it would take you to load a handgun, before you make me wish you’d gotten out of those faster.”

“What _kind_ of handgun?” she pushed. Asking for it again. But then she became a flurry of movements, not that Clint’s eyes missed anything, and she stretched back languidly against the cover, bereft of her clothing. Arched in a pretty stretch that made it seem like she wasn’t even paying attention to Clint.

He hooked one hand under her knee, yanking up hard so her hips twisted and her legs splayed open, one in his hand and the other flung across the bed. Then he settled himself in the new opening between her thighs and put his free hand on her other leg, pushing her down into the mattress.

When he leaned over to kiss the triangle of the soft flesh of her lower abdomen, he heard her make a strange noise, and it took him a moment to identify it. Mild frustration. Except, not the kind of frustration he was looking for. Not the “fuck me now” frustration. It was more an “again?” frustration.

“Bored?” he asked. And, ok, there was a little bit of bitterness in his voice, because he had always thought he had talent with his mouth. Precision, and all that. Oral had been the only parts of previous relationships that he’d _known_ he hadn’t screwed up.

“Of course not,” she answered immediately, but there’s something off in the way she said it.

Clint knew he couldn’t afford to let that kind of shit go anymore, so he leaned back, keeping his place between her knees.

“Nope. This whole thing goes on pause right now until you say what you’re thinking. I’m not adding ‘us’ to the list of things in my life I fucked up.”

She twisted a little at that, and he could see her trying to decide what path she wanted to take. He kept very still, refusing to add the rough of fabric to the sensation his presence pushed into her thighs.

“It’s…surprisingly difficult…when you’re down there. You don’t have much mercy, and I’m afraid I’m going to come.”

He laughed, relief radiating all the way from the sound of his breath to the way he held his head. “That’s your concern? All right then, come. You have my permission from now until such time as I see fit to revoke it.” He dipped down again, pulling her folds open with his thumbs so her could see all of her. He puts his mouth right at her skin and said, “At your pleasure, clever girl.”

She twitched at the feeling of words and hot breath against her sex, and she made a wholly more pleasant noise when Clint fucked his tongue into her.

And there was that _taste_ again. It left him feeling like he couldn’t get deep enough.

She put up a fight. His fingers had long since pressed bruising deep into the tender flesh of her thighs by the time she started to tremble. She’d even been biting back her soft gasps, struggling to keep her hips from jerking down toward him.

He knew she was being stubborn, so he was stubborn right back. He kept his hands away from anywhere but where he needed to hold, angling her toward him. He even fought off the temptation to lay a heavy slap into her thigh when he caught her digging her nails into her skin to try and ground herself. She was going over the edge with his mouth alone if he had to kneel there all night.

His lips were swollen and his mouth felt raw by the time she came undone, the thickening pulse wrung out of her and hailing his impending victory. She had remarkable control over her body, but time was winning out.

“Don’t,” she gasped, but her fingers twisted in his hair, and this time he let her hold him closer. He fought around wet skin and sucked deep. He couldn’t breathe, and he didn’t give a shit. Because with an arched back and deep moan, her legs splayed wide and Clint felt the clench and flutter of muscle run through her.

He sat up with triumph, licking his lips in the cool air. “About time,” he grinned.

There were tears dripping down from the corners of her eyes, and she twisted her face away from him. Real dread dropped through him, and he leaned over her quickly. “Hey! Are you ok?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

It had been a while since he’d heard her litany of apologies, and it made him feel sick as it began to drip from her mouth again. She lifted her head and then flung it backward against the bed, not hard enough to hurt through all the bedding, but it seemed to have been her intention.

Clint did the first thing that came to mind and slapped her hard. She stilled immediately.

“Natasha, you’re scaring me. I don’t understand what’s going on. So here are the choices. You use your safeword and tell me in your own time, or I make you tell me right now.”

“Make me.”

It wasn’t the sexual challenge that two those words tend to be. Rather, it was a whispered plea, and she couldn’t even bring herself to look him in the eye as she made it.

“Ok, then.”

There was a moment of peace, and then a flurry of activity that ended with Clint dragging her out of the bed by her hair. She scrambled for purchase against the concrete floor, trying to both curl up against the sudden cold and to spread herself out for better balance.

“You aren’t allowed to keep the thoughts in your head away from me!” She tried to jerk away from his rage, but he kept her tight against the side of his leg.

_What if someone comes in here right now?_

He buried the thought and shook her hard. “I can’t shoot blind here! If you aren’t going to tell me the problem, then I have to be hands off. I _will_ not risk _ruining_ you! I understand that there are going to be pitfalls, but if you’re not going to tell me when I hit them, then we can’t do this. We’ll go back into that limbo until you’re well enough to tell me what you need.”

He let her hair go with a rough shove, to illustrate his point, but kept near enough that their legs brushed.

“I came.” It’s so simple, once she’d actually said it. “I came, so I have to be punished.”

“I said you could.” She shook her head, still looking at the floor, and Clint repeated himself, more angrily. “I _said_ you could. I wanted you to. Why would I punish you?”

“It’s not…” she was fumbling for words, now that they could both see they’d missed each other in the night. “It’s not allowed. Not even when he’d want it. Not even when he’d make me.”

“He’d make you come, and then punish you for it? Why make you, then?”

She shrugged, finally looking up at him. “He liked the noises I made. And conditioning me. Against enjoying it.”

“It clearly worked.” His anger had drained away again, and he was struck by how much like a bow his temper was. Drawn into a tight tension and release with a snap of deadly accuracy, leaving the weapon without even the potential for anger. He sank down to sit on the floor. “Conditioned against a fucking orgasm. What was that guy’s problem?”

“It’s ok, though.” She crawled up into his lap, and he let her. She could ask to skip naked down the streets of Tokyo, and he couldn’t refuse her at this moment. “It’s ok. I don’t need to.”

“Fuck that. I don’t know a lot about this shit, but I know that’s not how it works. Did you used to like it?”

A pause, and then a hesitant, “Yes.”

“Then this is a trigger we’ll have to work through. This can’t be one-sided.” She’d tensed, and he kissed her forehead. “Slowly. As slowly as you need.”

“I could suck you off?”

Clint made a sound of disapproval. “You know, I’m really not in the mood anymore. What about you? Are you calm or…” He swallowed hard and forced the words. “Do you need me to punish you?”

She shrugged. “You yelled a bit. I’m thinking clearly. I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure I’m all right.”

“Good. But tell me if something changes. I don’t want a repeat of your first few days here. Ever.”

She laughed at that, a little huff that was so wholly unexpected that Clint had to look down to make sure. But he could definitely make out an amused smile as she looked up at him from where she curled against his chest. Unashamed in her nakedness.

“And what’s so funny about that?”

“You were so damn hesitant. Like you were going to break me or something. You got into it as you went, but those first few lashes?” She rolled her eyes. “It was the moment I realized you were someone new.”

“Because I strapped your ass too weakly?”

“Liked you’d pulled a muscle. I legitimately wondered for a few strokes if you’d injured your shoulder.”

She was blatantly laughing at him, and it was infectious. He found himself laughing, too. A sudden release of pressure.

“Really? Well, I’ll have to show you sometime what I can do now that I know how _unbreakable_ you can be.”

“Hmmm,” she hummed against his chest. “Promises, promises.”

“I don’t make idle threats.” He rubbed his thumb back and forth across her arm. “And Nat?”

“Yes?”

“Congratulations on making Agent. I think you have a bright and shining career ahead of you.”

He ducked to kiss her greedily, before she could make another snarky comeback.

***

The next morning, Clint woke to an e-mail about a mission that evening. The message succinctly outlined his role, really simple stuff and only an hour’s drive away. It wasn’t even supposed to be his, but Agent Richardson had gotten called away for an emergency assignment, and Clint had been the runner up.

“What does it say?” Natasha asked him, rolling over lazily.

“Nothing interesting, really.” His eyes rove down her body, and she smirks under the attention. “I’m taking a road trip this afternoon to babysit some team as their eyes in the sky.”

“I’ll get dressed.”

“No need. It’s just me.” Clint began stripping out of his sweats to get into more missions-appropriate gear.

She stopped, hands stilled in the middle of pulling back the sheets. “I’m not invited?”

“Like I said, no need. Seriously, I’m only there for if something goes horribly wrong. And it’s Brandon’s team, so nothing is going to go wrong. I’ll be back tonight.”

“What should I do?”

Clint shrugged, adjusting leather and tightening straps. “Roam the halls. Do whatever you like. Within reason. Kaylie is working on a translation gig down in sector twelve, I think. Drop by. Eat jello. See how many interns you can make run for the hills just by smiling at them. You’re a clever girl. You’ll think of something.” Fully dressed now, he stepped back to her to kiss her gently. “I’ll be back tonight.”

“And if you’re not?”

“If heaven is kind, then I would kill whoever delayed me. Because that would be mercy, compared to what they’d suffer if you got to them first.”

The smile she gave him in return was half-formed, and fading before he’d left. When the door shut behind him, her fingers curled tight to twist the sheets into her fists. A clock appeared in her mind’s eye, counting down or up or sideways, it did matter. How she hated being left alone, and without a task to tide her over.

She sat still on the bed, breath growing shallow.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: discussion of past non-consensual surgery.

It had literally been a four hour mission, excluding the prep time and short briefing. Nothing but playing back up for a snatch-and-grab that had gone off flawlessly. He’d watched the event through the scope on his bow, and then packed it up. Literally not even four hours from walking off base to walking back on.

Yet there she was, hands over her face, curled up on the floor, and rocking back and forth. He was familiar with the position, having suffered his own conglomeration of nightmares, flashbacks, and unexpected triggers. Just because he hadn’t had one that debilitating since his mandatory post-Baghdad therapy, didn’t mean he didn’t recognize it.

“Ok, that’s it,” he sighed, more to himself than to her. He slid down to sit against the wall, so he could wrap his arm around her. “We’re going to have to go through you and find your triggers. I can’t keep walking into them like this. And neither can you.”

“I’m fine.” Through clenched teeth from a body shaking so hard she was practically hitting her head against the wall.

“Bull. Shit.” He hooked his arms under her knees and lifted her into his lap. She clung to his neck immediately, shaking subsiding but not yet stopping.

“What do you need from me? Right now? What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then tell me what I did wrong, and I’ll do the opposite.”

“I can’t be alone.” The response was immediate. The quickest he’d ever gotten from her with such a question, and it hurt him that he would have done something she feared enough to tell him about it without having to be coaxed.

“Fortunately,” he murmured against her. “I know what the opposite of being left alone is.” She had stopped shaking. “Let’s play a game.”

Her response to that was mixed. He could feel her attention return to the moment at hand, but he could also feel her tense.

“How do I play?” Games could be good or bad, depending on the rules.

“You say a part of the body, like ‘leg’ or ‘nose.’ And then I kiss it. But you have to say each word in another language. You can go back to a language you used before, but there has to be at least three other languages in-between.”

“You don’t know all the words that I know.”

“Hmm, good point. Fortunately, I already have a solution. If you say a word I don’t know, then…” He paused and then kissed the next three words down her face. “I’ll. Just. Guess.”

“How do I win?”

“Does it have to be about winning?”

“It’s not a game if someone can’t lose.”

She wasn’t shaking any more. She wasn’t quite at “I’m going to eat you alive,” but her eyes were focused on this arbitrary goal that didn’t even exist yet.

“First one to lose their composure loses.”

She scoffs, because they both knew who was going to win this game. At the same time, though, it was good enough, and she unsettled herself from his lap.

“Yeah, I’m going to need you to do better than that. There’s practically nowhere that that uniform leaves available to me to kiss.”

She raised one eyebrow. “You don’t think that’s a little unfair? I demand equal opportunity.”

He sighed heavily, as if conceding a great point. “Fine. I guess I’ll just have to strip down, too.”

“Let me.”

He was about to ask her what she meant, but then she reached out and wrapped her fingers around his jacket zipper. He relaxed immediately, letting her pull and slide until, one item at a time, she removed all his clothing, folding it neatly on the floor beside them. Then she did the same with her own. It was both maddeningly slow and absolutely perfect.

The she looked right at him and said, “Doigts.”

Clint smirked. He knew that one. He took her hand, and carefully placed a kiss to each of her fingertips. And maybe he used a little more of his tongue than was strictly required, but no one held it against him.

“ιγνυακή χώρο.”

He hesitated at that one, and she smirked.

“No, shut up,” he shot at her. “I know the translation. Popliteal space. I just can’t think of what that word means. It’s kind of cheating to use medical anatomical terms.”

She just hummed in amusement.

“Oh! Right!” He ducked down and jerked one of her legs up into the air. She readjusted her weight coolly, keeping herself calm and sitting upright as Clint placed a kiss behind her knee.

“Olkapää.”

”What language is that even?” He held up his hand when she opened her mouth to respond. ”No, no. If you want to show off like that, you suffer the consequences. Remember? I have to guess.” He leaned forward to take her lips in a deep kiss, sucking at her tongue. When he pulled away he bit at her lower lip.

”Rty,” she chastised.

”Oh, ok. See _that_ was lips.” He ducked back again, and this time he shifted his position so he was straddling over her lap. Not touching, because hell if he’d be the first to cheat, but close enough to feel each other’s warmth.

”Gualainn,” she tried again, and then rolled her eyes in frustration when Clint shrugged. She clenched her teeth when he moved back to lay an open mouthed kiss onto her breast. His tongue played with her nipple, pushing the nub up against his top lip. Pinned there. Excruciatingly sensitive. And he wasn’t letting go.

“Espalda.”

He slapped the outside of her thigh, leaving a bright handprint. Her eyes lingered on it as it slowly faded to a edgeless red mark.

“’M not done yet,” he mumbled though his mouthful of her. Natasha stared up at the ceiling. Part of her was trying to win the game, but a growing part of her didn’t give a shit.

Eventually, Clint grew bored and ended the kiss.

“Espalda,” she repeated, and Clint sighed as he was forced to climb off of her and crawl around to kiss at her back. Long lines of kisses running from shoulder to the soft rise of her ass. He bit his kisses into her, marking parallel lines, and then going over them with softer lips. He put one hand on her neck to push her more bent over to give him easier access to the expanse of skin.

“جگر” she murmured, and he snorted in amusement.

“What am I supposed to do? Rip you open?” But he did the best he could with a round of kisses on her right side, just below her rib cage.

“घुटना.”

“Oh, pet,” he sighed. “You should already know my Hindi sucks. No clue what that is.” He ducked down and kissed at the softer triangle of skin, just above her pubis.

“Quadris.” He moved up slightly, first to her right hip, and then a line across to her left.

“Wrist.”

“I guess that counts.”

“It’s a language isn’t it?”

Instead of abandoning his position to find his target, he pulled her arm across her abdomen to lay her hand in the space between her thighs, wrist pressed close enough to her body that when he kissed it gently, she could feel his hot breath.

“Trying to tempt me?”

“I don’t remember giving you permission to say anything except body parts.”

“Tâmpit.” The irony of whether it was an insult or a body part was lost on Clint, since he didn’t know the word, and he smirked up at her, coming back up to kiss her lips. She tilted her head into it, but he could still see the tight lines in her neck.

“Cuisse.” He obliged ducked back down to her thigh, startling slightly when she moaned lowly. A glance back up at her revealed that it was more a play against him than an actual loss of control, but that didn’t negate it’s affects.

“All of me,” she sighed. “Everything.”

Clint lost the game with abandon.

***

“Let’s make a list,” he told her several days later.

“A list?”

“Of your triggers. I need somewhere to start, ok? And a list is a little mundane, but I’m thinking that it can get us going. I mean, it’s not a check-list or anything. It’s more like a map. For me.”

“Ok.”

“Well, you don’t have to be so enthusiastic about it.”

“I’m thinking.” She was perched in his lap, legs wide and set on either side of his waist. With that last sentence, she bent her hips so she dragged slowly up and down his lap.

Clint rolled his eyes. “That’s not thinking. That’s trying to play.”

“It’s prioritizing.”

He sighed heavily, and felt her begin to panic on top of him as she realized he was legitimately frustrated.

“Sorry,” she murmured, crawling off his lap to kneel at his feet.

“It’s fine. Just, pay attention, ok?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ok. Now, I know some of the things.? So what else? What shouldn’t I do?” He watched her debate answering for a moment. “Nat. This isn’t about you being strong, it’s about us being us. I don’t want to wantonly threaten you with losing me, but you have to understand that I’m tired of risking your sanity. If I don’t know what’s out there, I’ll have to play it safe. And that means away from you.”

“Doing nothing.”

“Meaning?”

“I hate having nothing to do. Empty white walls and huge expanses of time that don’t change. I feel so empty. I can’t handle being surround by an even larger expanse.”

“Ok.” Clint added it to the list in his head, cringing when he realized how often he’d used inactivity as a punishment. “What else?”

“I don’t handle the idea of pregnancy well.”

“Um, that seems a little…off the wall?”

“It makes me think about the surgery. I thought I was pregnant, for a bit. They made it so I couldn’t be.” She shuddered. “He kept me awake for as much of it as possible. I think he liked the way I begged him to be put under. To forget.”

Clint felt like he was going to throw up, and had to try several times before he could form a sentence. “That’s…that’s horrifying.”

“Well, it wasn’t pleasant.”

“Were you?”

“Was I what?”

“Pregnant.”

“Oh. No, I wasn’t.” Her brow furrowed. “At least, they said later that I hadn’t been.”

Clint counted to ten. And then back down to one. And then back up. He tried her trick, repeated the series of numbers in all the languages he could. He could feel her tensing at his knee as he continued to stare down at the floor without saying anything.

He couldn’t lose it right now. She wouldn’t understand his anger. He didn’t have the luxury of a temper. Not when she was like this.

He caressed her face gently. “So strong. To have survived everything, with your soul still alive in you.”

She bathed in the praise, even though she didn’t fully understand it.

***

He hadn’t intended it to be unmanageable. Just working through a few triggers, seeing how far he could push before it was too much. For example, she didn’t seem to mind being left with no task, as long as he was watching her. Then, it wasn’t so much a mindless activity, as a show. She could preen, unmoving, under his gaze for hours.

It was when he looked away that she began to wilt.

After arming her with her safeword, he began a push and pull rhetoric that took her closer and closer to the edge. Like when they’d been in Guatemala, and he had pulled her under and then back out of the water. Over and over again, quickly enough that she couldn’t catch up.

He sank her slowly, trying to find where she crossed the line from straining to breaking. He’d ordered her to use her safeword if she starting having to do herself damage in order to stay still.

He should have known she wouldn’t.

Within his two-steps-forward, one-step-back descent of her, he’d been taking breaks every tenth time or so where he’d actually touch her, rather than just let her settle under his gaze. It brought her back more completely and gave them both a break from the tension.

He couldn’t tell that there was a difference in her state of mind the final time he came up to her. She was just as rigid, just as whipcord.

But her mind was somewhere else. He stood behind her, placed his hands gently on her back.

There was no warning under his hands before she moved. One elbow went back into his gut, bending him forward where she connected his face with her opposite shoulder.

Pain shot through him, and he felt cartilage move. She’d done something with her legs, and he was falling. He managed to get one leg forward and around her shin, forcing her to her knees.

Then he hit the floor, on his back, rolling and kicking out at her. By the time he’d gotten backed away, on his hands and knees, she’d stilled again. He wasn’t sure if the disassociation had run its course, or if the position had brought her out.

She had turned around, still on her knees, and was looking at him in horror.

He began to reassure her, but his mouth filled with blood, causing him to raise a hand to his face. His hand touched warm wet on his skin. Shit, that was a lot of blood.

Clint had never been a pro at predicting human behavior, so he never was sure how exactly he _knew_ what Natasha’s reaction was going to be. Especially when he tended to be fantastically wrong.

He was upset when he saw he’d been right, and further disconcerted when he saw he’d underestimated the strength of the overreaction. Fortunately, he was already moving to interrupt the trajectory of the knife, apparently drawn from thin air. His fingers wrapped around her wrist, and he twisted, wrenching her until she dropped the weapon.

He pushed her backward to lie with her back arched, till her shoulders were on the floor, her legs folded back underneath her. He leaned over her, his hands on either of her wrists, pinning her with her arms out. He kept his head angled up, to try and keep from dripping on her face. Fortunately, the injury seemed to have been superficial.

“Are you here?”

“Yes, sir, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, I can’t…” She trailed off in horror, and Clint released her wrists. One hand went immediately to trace the blood on his face.

“I’m fine. Had a nosebleed before. Won’t be my last time.” He was watching her closely.

“You’re mad at me.”

“Not for the reasons you think. Did you know you were slipping? Did you feel it coming?”

She hesitated, and he slapped her hard.

“Yes,” she gasped. “I knew. I’m sorry!”

He climbed back off of her, weary and heavy under the weight of the last several months.

“You have a safeword for a _reason_!”

“No, it’s fine. I didn’t need it.”

“You just tried to stab yourself in the aorta.”

“You don’t know exactly what I was going to do.”

“No! You just tried to fucking stab yourself in the _aorta_. Don’t spew shit about knife trajectories; I know knives more than enough to know you just tried to stab yourself.” He was shaking, seeing repeating images of her bleeding out around the knife, his hands to useless to apply enough pressure.

He stood up, gripping the handle of the knife tightly enough that the edges dug hard into his skin.

“It wasn’t a conscious intention. I just moved.”

_What if I hadn’t been quick enough?_

“That’s not an excuse. It’s worse, really.” He threw his hands up and shook his head. “No. We’re done with this. And not just the trigger words. We’re done with this part of us. We’re hands-off until you agree to safeword if you need it.”

“No, I’m sorry, ok? I’m so sorry.” She shuffled up to him on her knees and ran her hands up and down the outside of his thighs. “Please.”

“It’s not a punishment, Natasha. It’s a safety measure. And it’s about more than you letting me push you too hard. You’re not even warning me when you know I’m about to hit a land mine. Last week? You _knew_ that you were about to go into a spiral, but I didn’t even get a heads up.”

She was curled up in to the floor, not looking at him, and it hurt.

He kneeled down and pulled at her so he could cup her face between his hands, rubbing strands of her hair between his thumbs and her cheeks. “I’m not saying that I won’t touch you. I’m saying I won’t lose control like you’re wanting. I’m saying I won’t hurt you. You won’t get it from me, and I’m not going to let you get it from you. So I guess we’ll see who folds first.”

“Are you at least going to punish me?”

“I’ll bring you down, if you need it. Just this once. But it’s not going to be a punishment. We’ll just have to wait this out together.”

***

Much to Natasha’s frustration, he seemed to be sticking to his guns. And not just his new resolutions about punishing her. He stopped playing with her. Some part of her acknowledged that he’d made it very clear that if she couldn’t follow the rules, then she couldn’t play. The other part of her was…something else.

She struggled to identify the emotion for several days before it hit her. She was fucking pissed. _At_ him. The emotion was so new that she confessed it to him immediately, eyes tearful, wondering if this would break his vow not to hurt her.

Instead he just nodded his head. Like it was the most fucking normal thing in the world.

“Yeah,” he’d said. “I can see how you’d feel that way. But I’m not risking you. Not any more than I have to.”

At least he hadn’t stopped touching her. In fact, it was like he was trying to make up for the loss of other types of contact. His hands were constantly all over her. Up and down her legs or massaging deep into her shoulders. Sometimes he straddled to sit on top of her in bed, though she still couldn’t get him to take things further than that.

Everywhere she turned, there was a hand on her sleeve, in her pocket, or playing with her hair. On one memorable occasion, he’d hooked his bow around her at the practice range, holding her between the string and the curve, pulling her against him. Honestly, she could get used to it. If it wasn’t so indicative of another type of physical drought.

The consideration of all of this swirled somewhere in the back of her mind all the time. Whatever she was focusing on, part of her was weighing the inevitable decision. She would either give in to Hawkeye’s stipulation, or she would find herself un-hurt for a long time. The choice in and of itself, seemed obvious. Why wouldn’t she be willing to utter a single word, especially when it would make him so happy? She didn’t pretend to understand why he didn’t want to break her, but that didn’t matter. Whatever he wanted, it was her job to give it to him.

So why couldn’t she do it?

She tried, sitting in the dark behind some shitty cover on their B&E mission in Belize. Some drug kingpin. She hadn’t really been paying attention beyond the details she’d need to complete the mission.

She formed her lips to make an “r” sound. No one near her. No one watching her. Hand pushed against her com so it momentarily wouldn’t pick up any words that might come out of her mouth. She rolled the sound forward in her mouth.

“Rompipalle,” she snapped instead, into the darkness, the Italian curse falling easily. She’d never had a problem with the word ‘red’ before. She even knew she’d probably said it recently, without noticing. But whenever she considered it in that context…

“Target moving your way.”

She put the thought on hold, to be savored later when she didn’t have a job to do. She waited, listening to the well-timed footsteps that brought the guard closer and closer to her. She moved with perfect timing, and the man hit the floor before he realized there was someone behind him.

It wasn’t like she didn’t understand _why_ he thought it was important. But the fact was that he was wrong. She didn’t need it.

She finished patting down the prone guard and grasped the found keycard loosely between two fingers. She had about one minute to make the expansive balcony, where she’d meet Hawkeye and the rest of their team.

She didn’t work with a safety net in real life, why would she need one in the bedroom. Her whole world revolved around the idea that a single mistake could get everybody killed. What were a few emotional breakdowns in light of that?

She twisted the door handle with a little more forced than necessary and emerged onto the balcony. She glanced around and saw a couple agents coming out the other door, sweeping the area with their guns as she had a moment ago. Hawkeye was with them, and he made his way over to her.

Some part of her whispered that trying to kill first him and then herself, didn’t constitute as an “emotional breakdown” but was more a “complete emotional compromise” What would she really loose by giving herself that further control?

Maybe that was it. Maybe she was tired of taking over so much of the control in her life, and the little bit more was just going to be a--

She was looking straight at him when his eyes widened in fear at some danger behind her. With a rough movement, he laid one hand on her arm and shoved her aside. Her mind split further, warring between obeying him and protecting him, and if she hadn’t been letting half her attention wander around in rhetorical questions and hypothetical situations, she would have been able to make the correct decision. She could have planted her foot and turned to see the danger, keeping herself between it and him.

Instead, she let herself get pushed to the side, catching herself with one foot from an outright fall. In a half-second, she turned to look over her shoulder and saw the gunman. Two shots rang out at the same time, and she watched the stranger tumble to the ground. At the same time, she felt Hawkeye fall behind her.

She heard ‘agent down’ over the coms and then realized she’d been the one to say it. In some strange out-of-body experience, numb and deaf, she was already crouched over his body, fingers on his pulse.

Still alive.

It became a chant her in head as she twisted around to one-handedly put two more bullets in the head of the fallen gunman. Just in case. And then she was back to him, fingers pushing deep into the bleeding cavity in his abdomen.

She shoved the beginnings of a flashback out of her mind. There were more important things to deal with than her own guilt trip.

Gunshots to the gut were always tricky. Almost always needed surgery. She mapped the major arteries out in her head, looking for the worst ones.

Renal? Too high. Splenic? Too low. Superior mesenteric? Too far to the left. Plus there wasn’t enough blood, even with her pressure.

Her eyes fluttered up to his face for the first time. His skin was pale and, with a shock, she realized he was conscious. He’d been lying too still for her assume he hadn’t passed out with the shock of metal rending through his flesh.

“I trust you,” he said or explained or warned or whatever it was that he meant by it. All it meant to her was that she returned her attention to the wound, feeling underneath his flank, relieved to feel it had been through and through.

She pushed her palms toward each other, pressuring him between her hands. The only sound she heard was his small grunt. She could feel his body tensing.

“Don’t move.” An order, spat from her lips at him when he tried to shift.

“Yes, ma’am.” Laughed quietly.

If nothing else, the day taught her to never look down on their co-teams. She’d never think them superfluous or unnecessary again, because she didn’t move from her spot as they salvaged the mission and got the extraction in place. While she told herself she could have done it if she’d had to, she still felt a deep gratitude that the existence of the others allowed her to stay where she was, applying steady pressure.

***

She managed to keep it together for over a day, mostly by numbing herself into a waiting game. It was worse than when he used to leave her without a task, but she managed it because she had to.

The one moment she could remember clearly was when she was standing outside the surgery ward, head ducked down to stare at the floor.

“He’ll be real proud of you,” Coulson’s voice interrupted her self-torture. “I know it’s a stretch right now, but you’re holding together so well. Imagine all the perfect things he’ll say to you when he wakes up. How you’re keeping so calm, how you didn’t panic on the roof, how you explained everything so well to the doctor.”

Had she done that? It wasn’t in her immediate memory, but she didn’t make much effort to find it.

“I got him shot.”

Coulson sighed. “Well, most all of us here have that baggage on our shoulders. Some of us don’t have the pleasure of knowing those who took our bullets for us survived the ordeal. Barton, on the other hand, is going to be fine.”

“I can’t do anything. I’m just standing here.”

“You’re doing your job.”

“My _job_ was to not get him shot.”

“From what I understand, getting shot was very much his choice. At least, as far as these things go.”

“I can’t do this.”

“Wrong. You’ve suffered worse and come out on top. You’ll do it again. More so this time, because you have someone waiting for you.” He shoved himself off the wall where he’d been leaning next to her. “Until we meet again. Hopefully under better circumstances.”

***

The surgery went flawlessly. The doctors had some comments about minor tissue repair, and congratulated everyone on the fact that the bullet had missed organs, veins, and arteries. Natasha just stood still, next to the bedside, clinging to his hand and watching him blink his way out of a drug-induced stupor.

She continued holding it together through the next day, most of which he slept through, and she did so by maintaining her silence, her stillness.

Less than 48 hours later, he was back in his room, after multiple promises to physicians that he would take it easy and that he wouldn’t leave the base. Regardless of the promises, his card access to the shooting range and the gym were revoked. He grumbled about it, but that was just the way he was.

She continued holding it together, until they were alone, and she’d gotten him safely seated on the bed, and then she broke. She buried her face in his lap and screamed. Loud long strings of Russian and filthy phrases aimed at herself. She twisted her fingers in the fabric of his pants and cried. Snot and tears and spit, ugly and self-deformed facial features. She couldn’t breathe, sucking in the fabric and choking on her heaving gasps.

He let her cry it out, and if the violence of such an outburst, from someone he’d only seen cry once, concerned him, he didn’t say. Instead he just rubbed up and down her back, digging his fingers into the muscles of her neck. Soothing words and touches until she calmed enough that she could feel the concrete pressing into her knees. Until she could remember that it would be better for him to lie down than to sit straight to tend to her.

Still, she couldn’t help the stilted plea. “Please punish me.”

She felt him tense, fingers clenching harder against her neck.

“We talked about this.”

She leaned back to sit on her heels, staring up at him through wet and contorted facial features. He crossed his legs.

“You have to. Please, just…you have to. I need it. Sir, I need it. It has to hurt, and it has to hurt for a long time.”

She watched his eyes physically twitch, in response to something she’d said. Something that was wrong. She was just always fucking up these days. And if the bullet hole in him didn’t make him believe that, maybe there was no hope of him ever realizing it.

“Will you safeword out if you need to?”

That stupid challenge again, and she only hesitated a moment before she said, “Yes. If that’s what it takes.” The deceit tasted strange in her mouth, but she _needed_ it.

She thought that she’d maybe gotten away with it, that he’d believed her, but his eyes narrowed suddenly, and he was all piercing blue, and she had to look down at the floor. For a moment, she thought she’d finally won the war and he’d stand up and slap her. Hard enough to hit the floor and taste blood.

But he just uncrossed his legs and re-crossed them the other way.

“Don’t ever lie to me again.”

She believed the silent threat behind the words. Worn thin and empty, she laid down on the bed next to him, screaming into the mattress in frustration.


	18. Chapter 18

In the end, it was the strangest thing that broke her resolve. Clint supposed he should have known that it wouldn’t be something classical. He should have known it wouldn’t be when he expected it.

“This one time, I was dropping into various locations of China on parachutes and planting message points. I’d drop, plant, and make my way back out of the country. Tedious as shit, let me tell you. At least I wasn’t the only one doing it.”

“What was the purpose?” she asked.

“Some sort of underground railroad, but for informants and agents and stuff. This was back during the Eletian shit that went down. If you’ve hacked as many SHIELD files as I think you have, you’ve probably read something about it.”

“I’m familiar with the crisis.”

“Yeah, so we were trying to move all those people out, and ended up setting up a bunch of check points from Hong Kong to Mongolia. Again, super tedious. Trekked through more of China with a blanket, knife, and water bottle than I ever want to again. Anyway, I’m on my sixth drop, and my parachute doesn’t pull right. So I take a deep breath and pull the secondary cord. Except some shit did something wrong and while the chute goes, it’s only half of the release. The other part got tangled and shredded. I ended up half-free-falling into a tree. Didn’t die only because some of the chute managed to be useful and then I got tangled in some branches. Did break a few ribs, a leg, and hit my head pretty damn hard.”

She had bent herself over into some sort of bridge stance and Clint, still stuck in the damn bed, eyed her with jealousy. She kicked up and over into a handstand, as perfectly straight as if she’d been standing. Then she folded herself again and was back on her feet.

“I’ve got to get you in a spreader bar and still if you can still pull those stunts.”

She almost lost her balance as she was setting herself to go into another routine, and he cursed at himself.

“When we reach the end of our impasse, of course.”

Shit she was giving him puppy dog eyes. Who the fuck had trained her on puppy dog eyes.

“That wasn’t even the worst I’ve had it,” he returned to his endless rhetoric. “This one time, I was stuck in a hole-in-the-wall hideout in…actually I have no idea where the fuck we were. But I was in this tiny little cabin with this jumpy little informant. I’m trying to keep him calm while simultaneously trying to keep us both alive, but he’s being impossible.”

He turned to grin at her. “And you know me. I’m just _such_ a people person. So I’m trying to keep him calm, and failing spectacularly, and he’s getting more and more jumpy and I’m getting more and more pissed, and I snap and jump up to stand and yell at him. Except I startle the kid and he has apparently been sitting there with his finger _on the fucking trigger_ because he jumps and his gun goes off and suddenly I have a hole in my chest. I later learned it tore up a corner of a lung. Missed the bronchus though. All I know is one second I’m standing, and the next I’m on my back. At least the kid had the good sense to call in. Extract managed to get both of us out alive, even though it did fuck the mission objective to hell.”

She’d moved on from general stretches into more physically taxing work. His muscles longed to join in, and his toes flexed reflexively with hers. Maybe he could talk her into filching a bow and letting him at least draw it. If he promised not to stand.

As if.

“But the one that really takes the cake is this time I got grabbed outside of Hungary. Which was bad, because I wasn’t supposed to be there. I hadn’t used the extraction, but had elected to make my own way back because I wanted to check on an asset that they wouldn’t give me permission to check on. I used to be such a little shit.”

He waited for some comment about him still being a little shit, but it must have been beyond her capabilities. She stayed quiet, moving into a position that strained at her thighs. Clint cocked his head to the side. He knew that series of motions. That was the routine she used when she was upset. She was trying to calm herself down.

Well, he supposed that both of them had been constantly on edge lately. He didn’t blame her. He just wished he could do something similar. Telling stories of his past injuries had started as a way to make her feel less upset, but it had turned into a kind of therapy session for him. He couldn’t move about, but he could still talk.

“Anyway, I get jumped out of nowhere, by some guys that don’t even have it out for me. They’re there for SHIELD, which means I’m fucked because I’m a disposable asset to them. I’m double-fucked since no one has any idea where I actually am. So I’m thinking through all the different plays I have and, idiot that I am, I decide to—”

He cut himself off when she wobbled and collapsed. He knew she hadn’t eaten or drank anything while he’d been out, but a day and a half wasn’t enough to weaken her that much. It was usually hours before she pushed her muscles the kind of fatigue that would make her fall.

He watched carefully as she pushed herself back up into the position, and then continued warily.

“Yeah, anyway. I decide to make a Hartigan play, which means that, first thing, they send in this enforcer to rough me up. Well, he doesn’t turn out to be a good first-round enforcer, because he manages to get my kidney really good. Like, too good. Like, I start to realize I might need a hospital. Which I tell my captors, and am distressed to find that half of them don’t believe me, and half of them don’t give a shit whether or not I die of internal bleeding right in front of them.” He laughed quietly to himself. “I was such an arrogant little ass. Fortunately, I was wrong, and it was just some deep-as-fuck bruising, but I'm sitting there thinking that I’m already stuck with this fucking internal injury and _then_ they start—”

“Red,” she gasped, falling down to land on her hands and knees.

Clint started to get up, putting one hand on the sheets, before the full meaning of the word registered. He froze, not speaking or breathing; afraid to do anything since he had no idea what had set her off.

It was a weird feeling, both bursting with joy and freaking the fuck out because he’d gone too far somewhere.

She was sobbing into the floor and he made the elective decision to go to her. If her safewording out included him touching her, then the whole relationship was fucking doomed anyway, since that was the only way he’d found to for sure bring her down.

She practically climbed into his arms when his fingers brushed her. Her whole body shook with the deep breathes she sucked in and forced out.

“You’re going to hyperventilate,” he murmured gently, but it was a long time before she began to breath normally. Even when she calmed her body, her fingers stayed wrapped in his shirt.

His wound was beginning to ache again, from sitting unsupported in such a weird position, and he didn’t give a shit.

“What was it?” he finally asked, when she seemed more coherent.

“I’m sorry!” Predictably her first words. Clint waited the apology out, gently rocking her back and forth like a frightened child. She didn’t seem to object. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t realize I was going to. I mean, I know you wanted it, but I—I’m so sorry!”

Eventually, he got a more substantial answer, gleaned from within her verbal waterfall. “You were just telling all these stories about when you got hurt and they kept getting _worse_ and I kept thinking I was supposed to be there to protect you even though the idea of that is ridiculous, and I was just so far from reality, and it _hurt_.”

He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, trying to touch everywhere at once. All of her encased in him. Reward, reward, reward.

“And look,” he praised. “Look how immediately it stopped. Look how much better this is. Instead of hurting and disobeying and sitting there all alone, you’re encased by me. I’m proud of you. I’m bursting with it. Isn’t this so much better?”

She nodded into him, hair rubbing out of place in the friction against his shirt. Even though she was still apologizing, more slowly now, in-between breaths. Her breathing was normal, though deep, and her eyes heavily lidded. Falling asleep.

He let her. His wound could reopen and bleed all over the place and they could just see if he’d care.

***

“You want to try one?”

He looked down at where she was curled in the bed beside him. Even though the lights were out, he could see the frame of her face, outlined by the backglow of various electronics strew through the room.

“Try one what?” he asked.

“Try one of my triggers.” He almost jumped when she reached to cup his balls through his boxers. “I have one in mind I think I’d like to have a go at.”

He supposed he should have been grateful she’d waited an entire day before she’d gone to call him on his promise. Well, she was the one meeting his requirements. He guessed he owed her the request.

“Let’s try it,” he breathed into her. "You really are something else.” He lined his body up against hers so she could feel him breathe.

She laughed, a little too breathily to sound normal, and bit at him.

He switched to Russian, even knowing his accent was halting and his vocabulary stunted. “You’re an only star in a dark sky.”

She snorted in amusement, and murmured something under her breath, also in Russian, too quick for him to catch.

In the end, he didn’t think it was the attention that did it, as much talent as he had. It was more the lavished attention. The constant praise. He kept it up throughout, turning from one language to another, trying to imitate her method of apologies. Making it his own.

“Tell me I can,” she gasped wantonly. He could feel her body trying to writhe, held still by only her will.

“Your call.”

She bit her lips together but couldn’t help the whine that escaped. Her back arched and her hands flew up to grasp at Clint’s arms.

He watched carefully to see if her breathing would slow or increase. For the longest time, her chest rose and fell at the exact same rhythm, pushing him toward concern. He whispered calming words into her ear, and eventually she seemed to calm.

“You ok?”

She laughed, and it was a better noise than any other.

“Glad to hear it.”

“My turn," she grinned.

***

Not that everything got so neatly tied up. They had a dangerous series of events a few weeks later during a run to somewhere in Argentina. Their files didn’t even have coordinates. Everything was strictly “need to know.”

Natasha didn’t have a problem with this; it had been her life for too long. Clint tried to take his cue from her and calm down about it, watching the clouds out the window of the plane. It was their first mission with just the two of them since her release from his care, and she had seated herself between his legs for the journey. He wasn’t complaining, though he did have to push her hand away once, glancing at the cockpit door. There were just some lines he wasn’t ready to cross. He doubted their pilot was looking for an impromptu performance.

“You’re excited.”

She tilted her head back to look at him. “Haven’t had a mission with just you in a while. Plus, it’s a demolition. Who doesn’t love to blow stuff up?”

It was hardly the kind of mission that got talked about around the SHIELD cafeteria tables, but necessary nonetheless. Some old government building that was going to be nothing but rubble and dust by the time they were done with it. The timing would mean minimal casualties, but it would be more than enough to jumpstart the regime change that was having trouble getting off the ground.

Missions like this one always made Clint a little uncomfortable, but he pushed it down, deciding to trust SHIELD.

Which made the sinking feeling in his gut all the worse when he actually hit the switch on the timer, several hours after their flight had landed. He and Nat were standing in the street, looking up at the building, watching the few sketchy pedestrians out and about in the late/early hour. She reached to tangle her fingers with his just as he flipped the switch. The strategically placed charges would implode the building as soon as the timer ran out, doing little to no damage to any of the other buildings on the street. There was even a chance the few political figures still inside would survive.

Which all meant shit when they saw her. There hadn’t been any movement in the windows until that moment, when a dark haired girl, seven at the oldest, danced across the window frame, followed swiftly by a scolding nanny.

The chances of a fully grown adult surviving the coming explosion were mid-range. That little girl didn’t stand a chance. What the fuck was a kid even doing in there?

Natasha was moving before Clint could get a hand out to stop her, and once she was out of his reach, he knew he’d never catch her.

“Get the fuck back here, right now!” he yelled, forgetting even to use Spanish. Heads turned and their faces were seen by those in the street. Little bits of memory that could later be used against them.

Clint didn’t give a fuck. He watched her hear his order. Watched her tiny little misstep. An almost stumble. Watched her flat-out ignore him and keep moving.

He ran the calculations in his head as she disappeared through the doorway. She had a little less than two minutes. The child had been on the third floor and the closest stairwell was halfway back. It had a guard, which she’d have to deal with. That nanny might throw a fit, too. Possibly more security.

Fuck. There was no way she’d get back down in time. He pushed away the insane thought of following her, and traced his eyes up the building. She had to know there wasn’t time. So what would she do?

He traced the angle and trajectory of everything near the window. Because, of course, that was the only way out for them. But a three story drop, while possible with Natasha alone, was a whole different ordeal with a struggling child in her arms.

He ran, rushing across the small front lawn and up a tree sitting catty-corner to the building, diagonal to the window. People were definitely watching now, and he was pretty sure that had been a camera flash. Fuck them all. He scaled the tree like a cat.

He unrolled the zip-line wire he had for emergencies, detaching it from the the arrow it was hooked onto. He threw it in a perfect arch, reaching with his other hand to catch and tangle. In a manner of seconds, it was anchored in the tree.

He leaned out over empty space calculating speed and wind and swing and distance to the window and guessing at how quickly she’d be moving when she came out. Added in her weight plus the probable weight of the kid. Watched the window, counting.

The flash of movement was his cue, and he launched himself into space, one hand gripping the zip line and the other reaching for her. The stupid kid was held tight against her. He snagged them with a shoulder wrenching impact that began their semi-controlled fall toward the ground.

 _Like our first meeting,_ he had time to think quickly. He felt at least one finger break as he lost his grip on the line, and hit the ground hard. Natasha was curled up around the girl, and Clint had had to twist his body to try and avoid landing on them.

Which was when the explosion hit. If anybody hadn’t been paying attention, they sure were after that. Clint could feeling the ringing in his head, could see the little girl screaming more than hear her. Natasha was already on her feet, pulling at his hand that didn’t have broken fingers. He scrambled to stand, and rushed to disappear with her into the dark of the countryside.

“Base,” he coughed into his com. “We’re going to need an emergency extraction. Right fucking now.”

***

She held her ground as the chain of command all took their turns yelling at her. Head up and chest high, at perfect attention. Clint leaned casually against the wall, watching, knowing she wouldn’t fare so well against him.

Not that he intended to yell at her like that. Pissed as he was, as much as it just wasn’t all right to endanger a mission like that, he was too pleased with the fact that she’d made a conscious desire of her own will over his.

It was only the subtle slide of her eyes to look at him, when no one else was watching her, that let him know how frightened she was of what would follow. As if he would dig deep into her for this.

Not that he intended to let her off the hook.

“Floor,” he snapped, as soon as they were alone. She obeyed immediately, shaking. He walked to sit on the bed and then snapped his fingers at her. She crawled, not a sexual hip-swaying crawl, but half-broken. Hand then knee then hand again. Eventually she was pushing her head against his knee.

“Tell me why I’m angry.”

“I disobeyed you!” The cry was out of her mouth before he’d even finished the sentence.

“Not so much!” The sharp words sent a shudder down her body, and he waited, tempting her to try again.

“Because I endangered myself?” That had been the answer to his question last time they’d been in this position. He was shaking, too. Imagining finding her body, ashen in the rubble.

“Go on.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

He softened, allowing himself to run a hand through her hair. She leaned into it, despite her assumption that it was a prelude to pain.

“Because you endangered yourself,” he agreed. “Because you scared me. And because you drew attention to the mission. Shit, Nat. We didn’t even know where we _were_. That’s how hush-hush the whole thing was. And now there are blurry photographs of our faces trying to be de-pixilated by Argentinian experts.”

He ducked to cup her chin, forced her to look up at him.

“We could have checked the building.” A pause. “Next time we’ll check the building. If you’re going to be pulling stunts like that, we’ll just have to play it safe.”

“But the mission parameters said-”

“I know. They were all ‘ASAP’ and shit. And we’ll ignore them if that’s what it takes.” He waited until she nodded, even if it was unconvinced. “Try again.”

“Yes, sir.” Clearly enunciated.

“Good. Now,” he leaned down to put his face right next to hers. “That’s done with. I talked about why I’m mad, so it’s behind us, for the duration of this discussion. Because I am so _proud_ of you.” He kissed her deeply, sucking her tongue into his mouth and breathing her scent through his nose. She molded under him flawlessly, in her surprise.

She managed a little noise of confusion when he broke apart from her.

“You clever, brave girl.”

“I don’t understand. I disobeyed. So many people. Deeply, deeply fucked up.”

“Yeah, and as a soldier, I was pissed. As Hawkeye to Black Widow, you endangered me and yourself and SHIELD’s interest, and who knows what else. But as me? As Clint to Nat, I’m _bursting_ with excitement.” He ran his hands shakily, up and down her arms, reflexively clenching his hands to dig his fingers deep into her skin. “You follow?”

“Sort of.”

“Good. Now, what do you _need_. Because it’s your request, tonight. I’m that proud of you. Nothing off limits, within reason. SHIELD and their stupid disciplinary committees can deal with the shitty fallout. You and I? We’re going to celebrate.”

“Because I defied your direct order?” Her voice was incredulous, possibly a little derisive.

“Exactly.” He hummed his acquiescence into her forehead. “So what do you need?”

A pause, the same stupid pause from every time she didn’t want to answer that question for him. But he waited it out, and was rewarded for his patience.

“Hurt me?”

He’d known that would be it. They hadn’t really tried anything deeply intense since she’d used her safeword, so it was about time, all things considered.

“Why?” he asked, wanting to make all the actions clear between them first.

“Because I want it.” This sentence was clearly stated. Bold. The next ones were quieter. “Because it’ll calm me down. I can’t just get away with it.”

He pulled slightly away, so he could look at her face, and she seemed to think it was a denial.

“Please. I know it’s not because you’re angry, I just…”

“I said anything you wanted, didn’t I? What? You think I have to be angry to punish you? It’s true that you disobeyed. It’s true there are consequences for behavior like that.” He looked down at her, watching the hope grow in her expression. “I think you had better get on the bed, on your hands and knees.”

She scrambled to obey him, and he stood up to watch her. He watched the forced curve of her back, bending under the intensity of his gaze as she settled.

“Safeword?” he checked.

She hesitated, and Clint almost worried until she spoke. “Can we change it?”

“Something in particular you had in mind?”

“I don’t like the old one. It’s still stutters in my mouth. Brings me back to being afraid of it.”

“Again, something in particular you had in mind?”

“Latrodectus.”

He smiled. “Latin. Appropriate. All right then. Latrodectus it is.”

***

The two of them settled the issue between them that night. SHIELD, as a whole, however, took a little longer. Natasha was taken off active duty for a while, going through some mandatory psychological evaluation sessions.

Personally, Clint was thrilled. He asked some pointed questions about why that hadn’t been available to her at the start, and got some bullshit answer about “only being offered to agents.”

Either way, she didn’t seem to mind much either. Oh, she had some choice words to say about some of her evaluators, but Clint suspected that was more because she didn’t like anyone in her head in general. Except him, clearly.

Clint did get called out on a few missions while she was grounded, but he was sure to either leave her directly in someone’s care, or to leave her with some meticulously detailed series of tasks. She said they worked well, and he didn’t come back to find her in a ball on the floor, so he figured she was telling the truth.

Not that there weren’t any more flashbacks. He’d still hit something unexpected every now and again, but he was starting to understand her better. Starting to be able to see them coming. It helped that half of them were avoided when she safe worded out. Something he never failed to praise her for.

When she did finally get herself back on a mission, they were momentarily taken aback to see that it wasn’t one with Clint.

“It’s probably a test,” he reassured her when her eyes looked like she might panic. And that was apparently the right thing to say. An issued challenge, ready for her to prove her worth against it.

Clint wasn’t surprised when the reports came back as flawless. Her teammates had both been impressed, if a little unnerved by her abilities. They were two new recruits out of the Ukraine, and as they were led away from the debrief, Clint could hear their handler telling them “That’s the goal right there. To get good enough that you can match up to _her_ skills. You both have a lot of work ahead of you.”

The female of the team had glanced back over her shoulder and given Natasha a look so full of reverence and longing that it was breathtaking.

“You and me both, girl,” Clint murmured to her, even though she was too far away to hear him.

“So,” Natasha bounced up to join him. “What are we doing today?”

“You look like you’ve got something in mind.”

“Well, I performed splendidly. With a team, too. One I didn’t know.”

“And?” He wanted to hear her say it, and she knew it.

“And I think I deserve a reward.”

He let his gaze move from where he’d been watching the Ukrainian team wander off down the hallway, and met her gaze. “Yeah, I guess you do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I added an epilogue de novo, and it’s because I’m a sap. I’m not sorry.


	19. Epilogue

4 Months Later

She was stretched out before him, arms wrapped up above her head in a reach toward heaven. Or, at least, toward his ceiling where the chain hung. Clint had to admit, there were uses for his off-base apartment after all. He couldn’t imagine SHIELD being all right with these type of architectural alterations being made in his little square concrete room.

He let his gaze trail down the chain until he landed at the junction where it changed to encircle her wrist. Then he kept going, past her arms, and then to where he head bowed deep in concentration. She panted slightly, body heavy with exertion and skin damp with sweat. She was facing away from him, but he knew her eyes were tight shut. He could see it in the tension lines of her neck.

His gaze kept moving, taking in her reddened shoulders, darkening to purpled bruising across her shoulder blades. Mockery of angel wings.

The red expanse narrowed with her waist, skillfully away from dangerous areas like organs and spine, then widened again to encompass the swell of her ass, and then moved down onto her thighs.

Clint had lost track of time a long while back, lost in her noises, in the caress of leather on flesh, in the scrabble of her feet to keep her balance, hoisted up on to tiptoe.

Like a flailing ballerina.

He walked over to the side table and put down the quirt and leather flogger he’d held in either hand. In its place, he picked up the heavier, more punishing, black rubber flogger. They hadn’t tried this one before, and he’d been hesitant when he’d felt its weight. Even at its lightest, this couldn’t be used to tease. It’s bite would always be punishing, even in Clint’s precision.

But she’d rolled her eyes and scoffed when he’d voiced his concerns. She threatened to tell him stories about past punishment, at her other handler’s whim, that would make him gag. _This_ she assured him, was nothing.

Clint thought she’d underestimated the destabilizing force brought on by having someone who loved you behind the whip. It was one thing to endure against an enemy. Another to walk the thin line between giving in and giving up.

But he decided to trust her. He swung the implement experimentally, tightening his grip against its unusual centrifugal force. He swung again, this time more sure in the feel of it. He stepped back to his place behind her.

“You with me, clever girl?”

A quiet gasp, and then “yes” breathed with a measured amount of her remaining strength. It was her only warning, before he swung sharply, the single strike darkening the red across her right shoulder blade.

Her cry of pain reinforced his theory that she still didn’t understand the difference between how long one could stand against torture and how long one could stand against _this_. He struck again on the other shoulder, arm snapping into extension, and earned another wrenched cry, this time through bit lips.

He ended up going easier on her than he’d intended. He liked the weight of the rubber flogger more than he’d thought he would, and he wanted to make sure her first exposure to it was wholly pleasurable.

Even though she’d probably give him shit for it later.

He put the whip back down on the table, and walked back to her again. This time, the touch against her was gentle, even though she flinched at it. He ran careful hands down the dark of her back, feeling the heat and the contortion of muscles. Even her strength wouldn’t keep her in this strained position for much longer, and he felt smug in knowing he’d made the right call.

“You still with me?”

Just a grunt in response this time. Not even an intelligible word. He moved the trace of his hands around to her front, embracing her, and dipped to touch his fingers to the top of her labia.

“Please,” she moaned. A full intelligible word that time, and Clint laughed. Ever since she’d gotten over whatever mental block those assholes had put in her, she’d become positively greedy. Not uncontrolled. She was never uncontrolled. But shameless.

Like just now. She was already begging in some language Clint didn’t speak. But he was sure it was beautiful and full of filthy things.

“Something I can understand, Nat. At least, if you want it to get you anywhere.” He teased her further, dipping to graze her clit and then pulling away again. He rested his hands on her stomach.

She switched to Czech, and this Clint understood. He rewarded/tortured her further by lowering his hands again, rubbing against her in a friction hard enough to keep her on the edge, but not enough to push her over.

He could hear French words leaking into the spiel, and he knew she was desperate. French was always her last play, since it tended to have the prettiest sounds in filthy begging. Personally, Clint also like the sound of Arabic, but he’d let her figure that out on her own.

With a deep sigh, Clint gave in and applied the friction she needed. He always tended to be soft regarding whether or not she could come. She’d been starved of it for too long as it was. He felt her release around his touch, then he had to quickly wrap his arms around her to support her weight, as she climaxed out and lost her footing. He kept one arm around her and reached up with the other to find the quick release.

He let her fall to the ground, taking him with her. Both of them shaky in her post-orgasm lilt.

“How’d I do?” he asked her, smiling wryly, and she just laughed lazily into the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Wow guys. Thanks to those who stuck with me along the journey. Seriously, the kind words are what give me the energy to tackle new chapters. Hope I lived up to expectations. :D  
> While I do have the vague idea of a sequel in the back of my mind, it’ll probably be a while. November is upon us, after all. For those of you interested, over on my [tumblr](http://polyamoryavengers.tumblr.com/), I am paying attention to prompts.


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